I’m American Too – Stories from Behind the Fences

During the months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, close to 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them citizens of the United States, were evacuated from the West Coast and “relocated” to detention camps established by the U.S. Government. Because they looked like the enemy, many would spend the next three years behind barbed wire. Their stories of discrimination and forced removal provide a window into a time when our nation failed to uphold the rights guaranteed to all citizens by the U.S. Constitution – regardless of nationality, race or ethnicity.

Seventy years later, the incarceration of persons of Japanese ancestry is still not widely understood by the American public as “one of the worst constitutional violations in this nation’s history” (National Japanese American Historical Society, p 2).

This documentary video, I’m American Too – Stories from Behind the Fences, sheds light on a darker chapter in our history, but, more importantly, serves as a call to action to ensure that prejudice and fear are not allowed to upset the delicate balance between the rights of citizens and the power of the state.

SECC and the EGUSD expend special thanks and heartfelt appreciation for the Time of Remembrance interviewees. Their first-hand accounts of relocation, resistance and resilience stand as testimony to the power of the human spirit — and as a reminder of how quickly “the thin veneer of tolerance can be ripped off.”

Reference

Here, in America? – Immigrants and “The Enemy” During WWII and Today. San Francisco. National Japanese American Historical Society. 2006

> Watch I'm American Too in the Video Gallery

Video Overview

The interview clips in the documentary I’m American Too – A Story from behind the Fences (see link below) are short snippets from a much more complete collection of “living voices” archived in the Elk Grove Unified School District’s Time of Remembrance Oral Histories website. In limiting the documentary to 16 minutes, we provide students with a very brief overview of the “relocation” of thousands of citizens of Japanese heritage from the West Coast following President Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066. What our documentary does not include are the many chapters in the internment/incarceration story beyond the initial impact of forced removal of Japanese-Americans from their homes and communities. A longer version of the documentary would include stories of resilience, of resistance, of resettlement, of redress and — most importantly — of why it is so important to understand and to stand up for our constitutional rights — and for the constitutional rights of all citizens.

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Lesson Plan

The lesson is an invitation to students to help shed light on a historical event that is still not widely recognized as one of the worst constitutional violations in our nation’s history. Students will explore the internment experience through the first-hand accounts archived in the Time of Remembrance online collection. By stepping into the stories of selected internees (historical characters), they will demonstrate a sense of historical perspective and in the process, become experts on the internment experience and, hopefully, advocates for tolerance and social justice.

> Download the I'm American Too lesson pdf

Lesson Objectives

• Students collect and evaluate information about the Japanese internment from Internet based oral histories. (CCSS Key Ideas and Details; Integration of Knowledge and Ideas)
• Students draw on primary sources to create a presentation reflective of the Japanese internment experience. (CCSS Key Ideas and Details; Integration of Knowledge and Ideas)
• Students evaluate, analyze and reflect on the constitutional issues involved in the internment of Japanese Americans and make connections to current events. (CCSS Craft and Structure; Comprehension and Collaboration; Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas)

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Online Resources
> Time of Remembrance Oral Histories website
from the Elk Grove Unified School District

> A More Perfect Union from The Smithsonian

> Life In a Japanese Internment Camp from The Smithsonian

> JARDA (Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives)
from the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley

> Generations of Japanese-Americans Scarred by WWII Internments
from The Sacramento Bee

> Densho: Japanese American Legacy Project
Non-profit organization with primary source materials on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans

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Student Video Projects

A Time of Fear: The Japanese Internment

Documentary 4-6 | Foulks Ranch Elementary School Video Production Club,
Elk Grove Unified School District
Producer: Kexin Ardisson | Teacher: Jim Bentley

The program idea was created when the teacher told his students about a friend who had been in the Japanese internment camps.

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The Japanese Internment
Documentary 9-12 | Franklin High School, Elk Grove Unified School District
Producers: Trevor Morisawa and Matthew Mesfin | Teacher: Brad Clark

The program idea evolved from the fact that members of both sides of Trevor
Morisawa's family were imprisoned in the Tule Lake internment camp during World War II. His great-grandmother, Yoshiko Morisawa, was interned while she was just beginning high school, an interesting parallel to the current age of the producers in the class. The program intends to teach the audience about the folly of the blind discrimination that plagued America during World War II. The war-fueled hysteria resulted in the unfair denial of basic human rights to the many people of Japanese descent living in the country, a terrible crime that should never be committed again.