After the Incarceration

Civil Rights & Liberties:

• Densho Civil Liberties Curriculum - These lesson plans examine issues including individual rights in wartime, the role of news media and other sources of information, and the protections promised by the U.S. Constitution and our system of government.
• Amendment Violation: Japanese American Internment and the United States Constitution (Grades 9-12) - This lesson plan, created by the National World War II Museum, highlights the civil rights violations associated with Japanese American incarceration during WWII.
• An excerpt from The Japanese-American Internment During WWII: A Discussion of Civil Liberties Then and Now - This resource is an excerpt from a larger collaboration of California State University, Sacramento, and the California State Legislature. It addresses the legal/constitutional impacts and implications of Japanese American incarceration.
• Are We Americans Again? A Portrait of Japanese American Internment (Grades 6-8)- In this lesson plan from JARDA, students reflect on the work of artist Estelle Ishigo, the European American wife of a Japanese American, to develop a sense of historical understanding of the internees' experiences during and after incarceration. The unit also defines and describes basic human rights and the role of an American citizen.

Legacy of the Japanese American Incarceration::

• Voices of Japanese-American Internees (Grades 9-12) - This lesson plan was created by the Anti-Defamation League. It includes oral histories from Japanese Americans and encourages students to think about other marginalized groups in American society. Special attention is also given to the role(s) played by the Civil liberties Act of 1988 and the goals of the redress movement in Japanese American history.
• Densho Encyclopedia entry on the Internal Security Act/Emergency Detention Act. Densho also has a separate entry on Japanese American efforts to repeal to the act.

Contemporary Relevance:

• Letters from Camp by Frank Chi - In this short film, Muslim American youth read aloud letters originally written by incarcerated Japanese American children in the 1940s. The letters used in the film come from the Clara Breed Collection (93.75.31) of the Japanese American National Museum.
• What It Means To Be An American: Lesson Plans on Race and the Media in Times of Crisis (Grades 6-12) - This booklet of lesson plans produced by the JACL puts the historical experiences of Japanese Americans in conversation with the experiences of Muslim Americans, post-9/11.
• Young Japanese-Americans Visit a WW2 Incarceration Camp - In this video produced by BuzzFeed, young Japanese Americans visit the site of the Manzanar incarceration camp. There, they reflect on the experiences of incarcerated family members, what it means to be Japanese American today, and why Japanese American history remains relevant.