Leaving for Camp

Preparing for Incarceration:

• Leaving Things Behind by the National Museum of American History (Grades 6-8) - This is a worksheet with five questions that broadly address the topic of Japanese Americans packing to leave for the incarceration camps.
• An excerpt from Estelle Ishigo's "Lone Heart Mountain" - This resource is a page from Ishigo's unpublished memoir, "Lone Heart Mountain," in which the author discusses her incarceration. In this particular excerpt, she discusses her feelings about packing for camp.
• Japanese American Internment: Fear Itself (Grades 5-8) - This lesson plan, created by the Library of Congress, includes several activities related to the "evacuation day" process, and how many Japanese Americans felt at the time.

Patriotism and Loyalty:

• A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans & the U.S. Constitution - This website, produced by the National Museum of American History, offers a broad overview of the Japanese American incarceration, with particular emphasis given to the topics of Japanese American loyalty and military service during World War II.
• Courage During World War II (Grades 9-12) - This lesson plan, created by the Go For Broke National Education Center, encourages students to consider the various ways in which Japanese Americans and groups supportive of Japanese Americans displayed courage during World War II.
• Japanese American Incarceration Through Primary Sources: The Diary of Stanley Hayami. This curriculum by the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) and the Smithsonian Museum of American History centers on a diary written by a teenager who left the Heart Mountain incarceration camp to join the military and was killed in combat.
• Politics and Patriotism in Education - This short article by Joel Westheimer, professor of education at the University of Ottawa, explores how patriotism has been performed and taught in the U.S. It does not directly focus on Japanese American incarceration, but it can be used as a springboard for broader discussions of patriotism.

Geography of Incarceration:

• Japanese American Confinement Sites in the United States During World War II - This map, produced by the JANM, shows all of the locations and types of facilities in which Japanese Americans were held during World War II. Short descriptions of the various types of sites/facilities are also included.
• Yale's "Out of the Desert" - This interactive map was produced by Yale University for its "Out of the Desert: Resilience and Memory in Japanese American Internment" exhibit, a project of the university libraries. The map highlights "assembly centers" and "internment camps," and links to various primary sources related to each site.
• The National Park Service Page on the Little Tokyo Historic District - This National Park Service web page includes a brief history of the Little Tokyo Historic District in Los Angeles, from the late 1900s through the present. This source could be used to consider what Japanese American communities were like before and after the incarceration.
• "How ‘Little Tokyo' of Los Angeles Changed Into ‘Bronzeville' And Back Again" - This short article/interview by NPR also discusses the transformation of Little Tokyo during and after the Japanese American incarceration.