evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945

Actor, author, and activist George Takei recounts his childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps for Japanese Americans during World War II and the impact the experience had on his later life.

"Marco Calvo always knew his grandfather, affectionately called Papoo, was a good man. He was named after him, after all. A first-generation Jewish immigrant, Papoo was hard-working, smart, and caring. When Papoo peacefully passes away, he expected the funeral to be simple. However, he is caught off guard by something unusual. Among his close family and friends are mourners he doesn't recognize-Japanese-American families-and no one is quite sure who they are or why they are at the service. How did these strangers know his grandfather so well? Set in the multicultural Central District of Seattle during World War II and inspired by author Josh Tuininga's family experiences, Don't Let Us Down explores a unique situation of Japanese and Jewish Americans living side by side in a country at war. Following Marco's grandfather's perspective, we learn of his life as a Sephardic Jewish immigrant living in America and his struggles as he settles into an America gearing up its war efforts. Despite the war raging just outside America's borders, Papoo befriends Sam Akiyama, a Japanese man who finds his world upended from President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066. Determined to keep Sam's business afloat while he and his family are unjustly incarcerated, Papoo creates a plan that not only changes the lives of the Akiyamas, but of the entire Nihonmachi community. An evocative and beautifully illustrated historical fiction graphic novel revealing the truth of one man's extraordinary efforts, Don't Let Us Down converges two perspectives into a single portrait of a community's struggle with race, responsibility, and what it truly means to be an American"--Provided by publisher.

"An oral history about Japanese internment during World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, from the perspective of children and young people affected"--Provided by publisher.

Actor, author, and activist George Takei recounts his childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps for Japanese Americans during World War II and the impact the experience had on his later life.

At the start of World War II, Japanese-American Aki and her family are sent to an internment camp in Arizona, while Mexican-American Sylvia's family leases their California farm and begins a fight to stop school segregation.

"Legendary photographers Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams all photographed the Japanese American incarceration, but with different approaches-and different results. This nonfiction picture book for middle grade readers examines the Japanese-American incarceration-and the complexity of documenting it-through the work of these three photographers"--Provided by publisher.

When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, things change for Sandy Saito and his family. They are shunned by those who used to be their friends and eventually rounded up and sent to internment camps in remote British Columbia. While he and his family try to make the best of the crowded, cramped living arrangements, and their separation from his father, Sandy and the other kids at camp take refuge playing baseball, using it as their tool for survival.

"After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Tama is sent to live in a War Relocation Center in the desert...Trying not to think of the life she once had, she works in the camp's tiny library...And she isn't the only one. George waits each morning by the door, his arms piled with books checked out the day before. As their friendship grows, Tama wonders: Can anyone possibly read so much? Is she the reason George comes to the library every day?"--Provided by publisher.

"On December 7, 1941--'a date which will live in infamy'--the Japanese navy launched an attack on the American military bases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and the US Army officially entered the Second World War. Three years later, on December 18, 1944, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which enabled the Secretary of War to enforce a mass deportation of more than 100,000 Americans to what government officials themselves called 'concentration camps.' None of these citizens had been accused of a real crime. All of them were torn from their homes, jobs, schools, and communities, and deposited in tawdry, makeshift housing behind barbed wire, solely for the crime of being of Japanese descent. President Roosevelt declared this community 'alien,'--whether they were citizens or not, native-born or not--accusing them of being potential spies and saboteurs for Japan who deserved to have their Constitutional rights stripped away. In doing so, the president set in motion another date which would live in infamy, the day when the US joined the ranks of those Fascist nations that had forcibly deported innocents solely on the basis of the circumstance of their birth. In 1944 the US Supreme Court ruled, in Korematsu v. United States, that the forcible deportation and detention of Japanese Americans on the basis of race was a 'military necessity.' Today it is widely considered one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time. But Korematsu was not an isolated event. In fact, the Court's racist ruling was the result of a deep-seated anti-Japanese, anti-Asian sentiment running all the way back to the California Gold Rush of the mid-1800s. Starting from this pivotal moment, Constitutional law scholar Lawrence Goldstone will take young readers through the key events of the 19th and 20th centuries leading up to the fundamental injustice of Japanese American internment. Tracing the history of Japanese immigration to America and the growing fear whites had of losing power, Goldstone will raise deeply resonant questions of what makes an American an American, and what it means for the Supreme Court to stand as the 'people's' branch of government"--Provided by the publisher.

With the recent death of her mother and the possibility of her family losing their farm, Samantha Sakamoto does not have space in her life for dreams, but when faced with prejudice and violence in her Washington State community after Pearl Harbor, she is determined to use her photography to document the bigotry around her.