There was a time when information about Executive Order 9066 and how it affected the lives of tens of thousands of people hardly existed. That, fortunately, has changed. Today, there are many excellent resources — books, as well as DVDs — that help to tell the story. We have compiled a list of titles worth exploring to add to your knowledge about one of the gravest injustices in American history. These resources might be available for borrowing from your neighborhood library, or they can be purchased from the institutions noted in parentheses following the title and author/filmmaker.
BOOKS
• “An Internment Odyssey: Haisho Tenten,” by Suikei Furuya, translated by Tatsumi Hayashi. (JCCH)
• “Family Torn Apart: The Internment Story of the Otokichi Muin Ozaki Family,” edited by Gail Honda. (JCCH)
• “Life Behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei,” by Yasutaro Soga. (JCCH)
• “Breaking the Silence: Lessons of Democracy and Social Justice from the World War II Honouliuli Internment and POW Camp in Hawai‘i,” edited by Suzanne Falgout and Linda Nishigaya. (Hawaii Okinawa Center, JCCH)
• “Reflections of Internment: The Art of Hawaii’s Hiroshi Honda,” by Hiroshi Honda. (JCCH)
• “Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment,” edited by Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro. (Available from JCCH)
• “Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps,” by Michi Nishiura Weglyn. (amazon.com)
• “Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians,” with a foreword by Tetsuden Kashima. (amazon.com)
• “Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest for Justice,” by Lorraine Bannai. (janm.org)
• “A Matter of Conscience: Essays on the World War II Heart Mountain Draft Resistance Movement,” by Mike Mackey. (janm.org)
• “A Principled Stand: The Story of Hirabayashi v. United States” by Gordon K. Hirabayashi, with James A. Hirabayashi and Lane Ryo Hirabayashi. (janm.org)
• “A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America,” by Greg Robinson. (janm.org)
• “Lost and Found: Reclaiming the Japanese American Incarceration,” by Karen Ishizuka. (janm.org)
FOR YOUNG READERS
• “Fred Korematsu Speaks Up,” by Laura Atkins and Stan Yogi, illustrations by Yutaka Houlette. (See review on Page 8.) (heydaybooks.com)
• “The Minidoka Story,” written and illustrated by Sat Ichikawa. (janm.org)
PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS
• “Children of Manzanar,” comments by children incarcerated at Manzanar Relocation Center, with photographs by Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake. (janm.org)
• “Elusive Truth: Four Photographers at Manzanar,” by Gerald H. Robinson, featuring photos by Ansel Adams, Clem Albers, Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake. (janm.org)
• “Discriminating Views: Documentary Photography and Japanese American Internment,” by James C. Curtis, spotlighting photographers hired by the War Relocation Authority whose images were shaped by the government’s need to explain and justify the imprisonment of over 110,000 Japanese Americans. (janm.org)
DVDs:
• “The Untold Story: Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawai‘i,” by Ryan Kawamoto. (JCCH)
• “The First Battle: The Battle for Equality in War-Time Hawaii,” by Tom Coffman. (JCCH)
• “Days of Waiting,” by Steven Okazaki, about Estelle Peck Ishigo, a Caucasian artist who chose to be interned with her Nisei husband. (farfilm.com)
• “Unfinished Business,” by Steven Okazaki. This Oscar-nominated documentary spotlights the internment cases of Fred Korematsu, Minoru Yasui and Gordon Hirabayashi. (amazon.com)
• “Something Strong Within,” by Robert A. Nakamura and Karen L. Ishizuka. (janm.org)
• “Farewell to Manzanar,” by John Korty, based on Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s book about her childhood in Manzanar. (JCCH, janm.org)
• “The Manzanar Fishing Club,” by Cory Shiozaki. (fearnotrout.com, janm.org, JCCH)
