THE JOURNAL of BEN UCHIDA: CITIZEN 13559 by Naomi Iizuka
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RESOURCE GUIDE THE JOURNAL OF BEN UCHIDA: CITIZEN 13559 by Naomi Iizuka March 3–March 20, 2020 • Winningstad Theatre ™ & © Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, Dear America and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered marks of Scholastic Inc. THE JOURNAL OF BEN UCHIDA: CITIZEN 13559 by Naomi Iizuka. Adapted from The Journal of Ben Uchida: Citizen 13559 Mirror Lake Internment Camp by Barry Denenberg. This play was commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and first produced and presented by John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2006. knew, Ben’s emotional journey is even more upsetting About This Guide than his physical one. Originally commissioned by Oregon Children’s Theatre creates teacher resource the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, this play guides for our mainstage shows with the intention details–with anger, despair, sadness, and hope–a dark to help teachers enhance the field trip experience for chapter in this country’s history, and tells a story that their students by engaging further with the content of is relevant, moving, and one that cannot be forgotten. the show. We seek to provide lesson plans and activ- Content warning: This show uses historically ities that can be facilitated easily and with minimal accurate language (from the 1940s during WWII), preparation, that tie in with the standard curriculum, including racial slurs, hate speech, and threats of and that engage different abilities and imaginations. bias-motivated violence. Additionally, the play In these activities we also offer opportunities to contains visual imagery and indirect references explore social and emotional skills, as are described to suicide in the concentration camp. The word by Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional “suicide” is not used in the play, nor is the act of Learning (CASEL). We highlight these themes in the suicide dramatized or seen on stage. play in our discussion questions and offer activities that help students build these skills. These standards For more information about preparing your students can be found throughout this guide in blue. in advance, or debriefing with them after, please contact Patron Services for details and resources. We also recommend informing parents that a character in About the Show the play dies by suicide, so that they can be prepared In 1942, 12-year-old Ben Uchida and his family are to support their student as needed. forcibly removed from their home in San Francisco and relocated to Mirror Lake, a fictional camp which represents ten American concentration camps where families of Japanese descent were imprisoned. In this unfamiliar place, removed from everything he once 1 RESOURCE GUIDE ry of the war. Writing some of the first books in the Big Ideas Dear America series was a turning point in my career. • Hearing personal stories are a powerful way to Its popularity and the resulting readers’ letters made learn about painful historical events. a great impression on me. This in turn inspired my • Remembering family and relationships can help writing and fueled my research. With my bookstore in difficult times. background and the help of numerous knowledge- able booksellers I am able to assemble an extensive • Learning about your family’s history and culture bibliography on each topic I write. I think there’s is important. an art to both writing and research. I’m a good writer but a better researcher.” Something that has About the Author added greatly to Denenberg’s perspective on writing Barry Denenberg is the critically acclaimed author for young readers is his volunteer work as Director of of non-fiction and historical fiction. His historical Creative Writing and Library Services at the Waterside fiction includes titles in theDear America, My Name is School in Stamford, Connecticut. Waterside, estab- America, and Royal Diaries series, many of which have lished in 2001, is an independent school dedicated been named NCSS/CBC Notable Social Studies to educating gifted children of the communities’ Trade Books for Young People. His nonfiction books low-income families. Aside from writing and have covered a wide array of topics, from Anne Frank teaching Denenberg’s interests include listening to to Elvis Presley. After the publication of An American music, reading (books not related to his research), Hero: The True Story of Charles Lindbergh, Denenberg swimming, practicing yoga and spending time with was interviewed for various documentaries includ- his family. Barry Denenberg lives in Bedford, New ing ABC’s “The Century.” Denenberg was born York with his wife and daughter. in Brooklyn, New York and lived in Long Island, Binghamton, New York, and Palisades Park, New Jersey. “I was a serious reader from an early age and About the Playwright Naomi Iizuka’s plays include 36 Views, Polaroid when I attended Boston University in 1968, major- Stories, Anon(ymous), Language of Angels, Aloha, Say the ing in history, I worked in a bookstore at night,” he Pretty Girls, Tattoo Girl, Skin, At the Vanishing Point, says. “After college I was a book buyer for some fine, Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West, 17 independent bookstores, some of the nation’s largest Reasons Why, Ghostwritten, Hamlet: Blood in the Brain retail book chains and a marketing executive in (a collaboration with CalShakes and Campo Santo publishing. At the age of forty I came to the startling + Intersection for the Arts), 3 Truths (a collaboration realization that the glamorous world of power lunch- with Cornerstone Theater Company), and War of the es, power politics, and power trips was not for me. Worlds (a collaboration with Anne Bogart and SITI I immediately went to work on the Great American Company.) Her plays have been produced by Berkeley Novel (since destroyed) and was rescued when my Rep, the Goodman, the Guthrie, Cornerstone, future wife, Jean Feiwel (then publisher of Scholastic Intiman, Children’s Theater Company, the Kennedy Inc.) made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Scholastic Center, the Huntington Theater, Actors’ Theatre of had received a biography of John F. Kennedy that Louisville, GeVa, Portland Center Stage, the Public they deemed unacceptable: would I like to try and Theatre, Campo Santo + Intersection for the Arts, write one? The rest is history in more ways than one. Dallas Theatre Center, the Brooklyn Academy of I went on to write biographies of Jackie Robinson, Music’s “Next Wave Festival,” and Soho Rep. Her Muhammad Ali, J. Edgar Hoover, Nelson Mandela, plays were included in Arena Stage’s Our War project Elvis Presley and Voices From Vietnam, an oral histo- 2 RESOURCE GUIDE and Baltimore Center Stage’s My America project. of events. (5.24 Multicultural Studies, Historical Iizuka’s plays have been published by Overlook Press, Thinking) Playscripts, Smith and Kraus, Dramatic Publishing, • Evaluate the influence of the intersections of Sun and Moon Press, and TCG. Iizuka is an alumna identity (including but not limited to gender, age, of New Dramatists and the recipient of a PEN/Laura race, ethnicity, religion and class) on experiences Pels Award, an Alpert Award, a Joyce Foundation of peoples, groups and events. (8.25 Multicultural Award, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Stavis Award Studies, Historical Knowledge) from the National Theatre Conference, a Rockefeller Foundation MAP grant, an NEA/TCG Artist in Res- • Examine and analyze important U.S. and idence grant, a McKnight Fellowship, a PEN Center Oregon documents, including the Constitution, USA West Award for Drama, Princeton University’s Bill of Rights… (8.5 Multicultural Studies) Hodder Fellowship, and a Jerome Fellowship. Her play Good Kids was the first play commissioned by the Big Ten Consortium’s New Play Initiative designed Activities: Before the Show to provide more roles for women. Her latest work, The Last Firefly was workshopped at the Kennedy Our Rights: What Does It Center’s New Visions/New Voices and was com- missioned and recently produced at the Children’s Mean to Be An American? Outcome: Students will contemplate their most Theatre Company. Iizuka currently heads the MFA important rights and the consequences of having Playwriting program at the University of California, those rights taken away. San Diego. (Oregon Social Sciences Content Standards 4.12, 5.21, 6.21, 7.25, 8.28) Oregon Social Sciences Academic Content Standards: Materials: Post-its Grades 4–8 Write “rights” on board. What “rights” do we have? Give an example & nonexample at school, e.g., We Adopted May 17, 2018 all have a right to be productive workers in our class- • Explain how diverse individuals, groups and room. Does that mean I can wear my rollerblades in other traditionally marginalized groups, circum- class if that helps me study? Why not? What rights stances and events influenced early growth and should/do we have in our class? In school? What changes in Oregon. (4.12 Multicultural Studies & rights should/do all Americans have? Historical Knowledge) Ask each student to list 3 important rights important • Identify issues related to historical events to as an American. Share in small groups. Each group recognize power, authority and governance as it chooses 2-3 and writes each on a post-it. Post on relates to systems of oppression and its impact on board and cluster similar terms. ethnic and religious groups and other traditionally marginalized groups in the modern era (bias and injustice, discrimination, stereotypes) (5.21, 6.21, Key Questions Discuss as class: What do you notice? 7.25, 8.28 Multicultural Studies, Historical Knowledge, Historical Thinking) During World War II the American government took away the rights of many Japanese Americans, • Explain why individuals and groups during the including their rights to freedom of speech and press same historical period differed in their perspectives 3 RESOURCE GUIDE and against unreasonable searches.