WEEK 5: WHAT IS CITIZENSHIP?

week five schedule

FILMS OF THE WEEK

SUNDAY - july 12, 2020

sunday supper: hawai’i’s chicken hekka and nisei vets

By Chef Instructor Alan Tsuchiyama, UH's Culinary Institute of the Pacific, and Cybrarian Shari Tamashiro

Hawaii’s Chicken Hekka is a dish with plantation roots, originating from Japanese sukiyaki. The name comes from the Hiroshima dialect (Heka is sukiyaki). Hekka is a simpler, one-pot version of the fancier sukiyaki. Learn how to make this iconic Hawaii dish from Chef Instructor Alan Tsuchiyama of UH's Culinary Institute of the Pacific. This will be followed by a "Talk Story" with Shari Tamashiro about Chicken Hekka on the frontlines, Sawdust Bread and other WWII food stories. 

Click here for the recipe

alton chung: master storyteller

Courtesy of the Friends of Minidoka

Alton Chung, a master storyteller, will be telling the stories of Minoru Teruya and Takejiro Higa

Minoru Teruya was born in Hawaii, went to Okinawa with his grandfather for a few years, and was trapped there when WWII began.  Not having heard from his parents in years and unable to go back to Hawaii, he chose to fight for his country, Japan, as a Kamikaze submarine pilot.  The War ended just before he was to go on his mission and he worked his way back to Hawaii through post-War Japan, holding onto his secret for years. 

Takejiro Higa was also born in Hawaii, grew up on Okinawa, but returned to Hawaii, when he turned 16.  After Pearl Harbor, he was asked to join the Military Intelligence Service and soon became part of the team planning the invasion of Okinawa.  He worried about what he is to do, if he recognized a relative or an old friend, looking through the sights of his rifle.  Hear the story of these two amazing men, living through extraordinary times.

monday - july 13, 2020

CONFINEMENT OF JAPANESE AMERICANS IN NEW MEXICO DURING WORLD WAR II

Courtesy of New Mexico Japanese American Citizens League

With a National Park Service Japanese American Confinement Sites grant, NM JACL 's Confinement in Land of Enchantment, Japanese Americans in New Mexico during World War II (CLOE) project produced a traveling multimedia exhibit.  This was shared at various museums and libraries in 2018 and 2019.  The traveling program also included a series of community forums with survivors, descendants of those incarcerated, and history scholars.   The project chronicled the experience of 6000 Japanese Americans who were detained in government camps in Santa Fe, Lordsburg, Fort Stanton, and Baca (Old Raton Ranch).

The poster displays that made up the traveling exhibit are provided for viewing.  The exhibit display text, photos, memoirs, letters, art works, artifacts, and maps were drawn from the total CLOE project..  Other project products included historic markers, oral history interviews, outreach publication, prisoner roster, and website / story map

NEW MEXICO JACL PRESENTS . . .

Courtesy of New Mexico Japanese American Citizens League

Today’s virtual presentation introduces the JACL Players, who begin each performance with a musical slide show that captures images of a hundred years of Issei and Nisei history.  This readers’ theater group of the New Mexico JACL performs plays that draw from the little-known stories of Lordsburg and Santa Fe prison camps and the fledgling Nikkei communities that dotted the map of New Mexico before WWII.  Every February, playwright Nikki Nojima Louis launches a Day of Remembrance performance with a new script that links past-to-present through the humanizing gift of story.

Since 2014, the repertoire has included: Asian American Legacy Stories; Lordsburg Diary, with Sam Mihara; Citizen Min, a play by Holly Yasui; From Days of Infamy to Days of Remembrance; and Nisei, the Greatest Generation. In 2019, NMJACL partnered with the Go For Broke National Education Center for a five-month exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum: Courage and Compassion: Our Shared Story of the Japanese American WWII Experience.

Coming again from Albuquerque during week 9, Victor Yamada will host CONFINEMENT IN THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT, a film by Kori Kobayashi, on the WWII prison camps of Lordsburg, Santa Fe, Fort Stanton, and Old Raton Ranch.

Community Exhibit/Archives

This is a space to share photos, stories, artifacts, and memories from your family, your community, and your own life. Click HERE to enter.

tuesday - july 14, 2020

Understanding Tule Lake: A Brief History

Courtesy of Densho

Tule Lake began as one of ten concentration camps that held Japanese Americans forcibly removed from the West Coast—but in July 1943, Tule Lake became a “segregation center” for Japanese Americans who had refused to give unqualified “yes” responses to the infamous loyalty questionnaire. Overcrowding, labor disputes, increased militarization, and other conditions led to unrest, and eventually over 5,000 Tule Lake inmates renounced their U.S. citizenship. Filmmaker Sharon Yamato and Densho Content Director Brian Niiya give an overview of this complicated history, and explore how Tule Lake has evolved over time from a place stigmatized by the larger Japanese American community to one that is recognized today for its role in resistance to the WWII incarceration.

The Heritage of Sport: An Overview of the University of Denver Amache Project

Courtesy of the University of Denver, Amache Project

Since 2008 the University of Denver Amache Project has worked with community partners to research, interpret, and preserve the physical remains of Amache in southeastern Colorado. A discussion of research on sports at Amache illustrates how the project works with the Japanese American and local community and employs a variety of methods including oral history, intensive archaeological study, and documentary research.

For further information, click here.

be a history detective educational activity

Courtesy of the Japanese American National Museum

Watch and follow along as Nina Nakao, JANM’s Education Assistant, leads you through our “History Detectives” activity to uncover the complex history of a canvas bag from World War II. Then, try your hand at being a history detective with a sample activity. Suggested materials to have while you watch: pen, pencil, and an object to explore! Artifact: Duffle bag used at the Amache concentration camp during World War II. Japanese American National Museum (Gift of Frank S. Nakatani, 92.62.1B) JANM’s educational programs and resources support learners in thinking critically and making personal and human connections to museum content and collections. We facilitate active learning experiences that encourage independent thinking, making connections, and interacting with peers.

Wednesday - july 15, 2020

Site Tour of Fort Missoula Alien Detention Center

Courtesy of the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula

Join HMFM Education Director Kristjana Eyjólfsson and Board Member Ron Wakimoto on a tour of the Fort Missoula grounds. Ron and Kristjana put the Department of Justice Alien Detention Center into context within the wider world of Japanese American incarceration. Using on site video and historic photos, they explore the barracks, golf course, original barrack block location and surrounding area, and the Post Hospital to introduce the Fort Missoula ADC experience.

Loyalty Hearings at Fort Missoula

Courtesy of the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula

Executive Director Matt Lautzenheiser and museum friend Bob Knight discuss the unique situation faced by Japanese men detained at Fort Missoula. The Issei brought to the Department of Justice Alien Detention Center were subjected to an immigration hearing and a loyalty hearing. Bob Knight discusses the particularities of these hearings, and the effect of this experience on the Japanese men held at Fort Missoula.

thursday - july 16, 2020

Densho Rebroadcast-Camp records
link available at 1:00 pM Pacific time

Courtesy of Densho

Most Nikkei from the western states were incarcerated during WWII. Some individuals came from other states and even Latin America. You will learn about the abundance of archival material at the National Archives pertaining to the War Relocation Authority and the Department of Justice. Densho will co-present this session.

ONE ON ONE GENEALOGY CONSULTATIONS

Brought to you by California Genealogical Society, Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, NPS and JAMP

Space is limited. Consultations will be scheduled for Thursdays from June 18 - August 13. Each session will be 20 minutes, so preparation is key!

#DEARANCESTORS

By Brynn Saito

Week 5: What is Citizenship?

Prompt: Homelands. What does it mean to belong to a country, a people, a place? Write a letter to your homeland, wherever this may be for you. Perhaps it’s a love letter, or a letter of reckoning, or a letter of longing for an imagined country. See “Dear America” by Rachel Eliza Griffiths and “Letter to America” by Traci Brimhall for examples.

friday - july 17, 2020

Book Club: Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa

Courtesy of Friends of Minidoka

Everything She Touched recounts the incredible life of American sculptor Ruth Asawa (1926–2013), a woman who wielded imagination and hope in the face of intolerance and who transformed everything she touched into art. This lively and compelling new book by journalist and author Marilyn Chase is

the first biography of this major American artist.

Asawa’s art is both extraordinarily beautiful and entirely unique. Her most famous works are her hanging wire sculptures— sinuous, intricate, and seemingly weightless metal pieces that she created from humble materials. They are widely celebrated and are now exhibited in museums and galleries all over the world.

Ruth Asawa was born and raised on a California farm. She survived the World War II‐era Japanese American internment camps, and after the war traveled to Mexico and later attended the groundbreaking school at Black Mountain College, where she began experimenting with new forms of art. Asawa forged an unconventional path in everything she did—whether raising a multiracial family of six children, founding a high school dedicated to the arts, or pursuing her own art practice independent of the New York art market. She also created iconic urban public art as well as hundreds of sculptures and works on paper.

In this compelling biography, Marilyn Chase brings Asawa’s story to vivid life. She draws on Asawa’s extensive archives and weaves together many voices—family, friends, teachers, and critics—to offer a complex and fascinating portrait of this extraordinary woman.

ARTIST TALK WITH na omi shintani and lillian michiko blakey

Na Omi (Judy) Shintani’s art focuses on remembrance, connection, and storytelling. She makes assemblages, produces installations, creates performances, and facilitates social engagement activities to generate visual stories that bring vital issues to light. She offers participants ways to become art collaborators by interacting with her work and inviting feedback. 

As a Japanese American Artist, she has focused much of her art career on researching and creating works that give voice to internee memories and hidden stories about this time.

Lillian Michiko Blakey is a sansei, a third generation Japanese Canadian. Her work explores the issues of identity as she reconciles the strong feelings of shame that Japanese Canadians experienced during World War II the fact is that her family members have been loyal Canadians for over 100 years. She achieves this by telling her family’s story through her art.

saturday - july 18, 2020