Incarceration Through Comics and Graphic Novels

TEACHING JAPANESE AMERICAN INCARCERATION THROUGH COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

Objective: Students will learn about the personal experiences of Japanese American incarcerees during World War II and will practice communicating information concisely by developing an original comic.

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words. Description:

According to the School Library Journal’s article Teaching with Graphic Novels, the advantages* of teaching with comics and graphic novels as supplemental texts includes:

• supporting low readers and promoting memory through pairing of image and text • modeling concise verbiage for skilled readers • reinforcing left-to-right sequence • communicating ideas efficiently

Martin Luther King, Jr. contributed to a comic book titled The Montgomery Story, a copy of which can be found in the museum’s archive (a related teacher guide can be found here http://americanhistory.si.edu/citizenship/pdf/School_MLK.pdf). That work inspired Congressman John Lewis to tell his own story of the civil rights movement through comics in the New York Times bestseller March. Some famous examples of graphic novels on civil-rights topics are Maus, Art Spiegelman’s series about his family’s experiences during the Holocaust, and Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical series about her childhood in Iran.

In addition, graphics and illustrations have a long tradition in Japanese art, including scroll paintings, anime, and manga (literally “random sketches” or doodles, but now used to refer to comic books or illustrated entertainment). See this video [http://pulverer.si.edu/node/184] from the Smithsonian’s museums of Asian art on the evolution of Japanese graphic art. Comics were also a method for Japanese American incarcerees in World War II to express their experiences. Most famous among these artists was Miné Okubo, who was incarcerated in the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah during World War II. Okubo’s drawings take the reader through her time at the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, California, and eventually the Topaz camp. Her artwork inspired her book Citizen 13660, which was published in 1946.

TEACHING JAPANESE AMERICAN INCARCERATION THROUGH COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

Drawing, Mine Okubo [Waiting in Lines at Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, California, 1942]. Courtesy of the Japanese American National Museum (Gift of Mine Okubo Estate, 2007.62).

Teen participants in the National Museum of American History’s Youth Civic Engagement Program collaborated with Evan Keeling, an artist and exhibits fabricator from the Smithsonian Exhibits, and teens at the Hirshhorn Museum’s ARTLAB+, to create this series of original comics on the Japanese American experience during World War II. The comics represent oral histories from survivors of Japanese American incarceration camps.

Use these comics to introduce this period in history to students or to prepare students to view and participate in the National Youth Summit on Japanese American Incarceration [http://americanhistory.si.edu/nys/national-youth-summit-japanese-american-incarceration- world-war-ii]. As an assessment for this or other topics, use the comic template included here to allow students to create their own comics based on their studies, including examining primary sources such as oral histories. Find oral histories and other primary sources on Japanese American incarceration at the Densho Digital Archive.

*The vivid imagery in comics and graphic novels may cause concern among some parents, so graphic novels should be carefully chosen and discussed with parents and administrators.

TEACHING JAPANESE AMERICAN INCARCERATION THROUGH COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

Resources

Norman Mineta: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/26/us/washington-talk- friendshipsheat-war-welds-bond-that-endures-across-aisles-years.html

Yuri Kochiyama: http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Yuri_Kochiyama/ http://www.democracynow.org/2006/2/21/civil_rights_activist_yuri_kochiyama_re members Fred Korematsu: http://www.korematsuinstitute.org/fred-t-korematsu-1/

Chizu Iiyama: http://www.tellingstories.org/internment/ciiyama/index.html Masaru Kawaguchi: http://www.tellingstories.org/internment/mkawaguchi/index.html

Paul Ohtaki: http://www.tellingstories.org/internment/pohtaki/index.html

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While incarcerated Yuri organized welcoming parties April 2, 1942 for new arrivals and a group called the Crusaders that wrote letters to Nisei* soldiers. the Jerome camp newspaper shared samples of the letters with Yuri’s column, Nisei in Khaki.

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youth civic engagement program engagement civic youth

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youth-civic-engagement-program

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youth civic engagement program engagement civic youth

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