Beacon HIll Boys, Ken Mochizuki (2002)
Like other Japanese American families in the Beacon Hill area of Seattle during the early 1970s, 16-year-old Dan Inagaki's parents expect him to be an example of the "model minority". But unlike Brad, Dan's older brother, who has a 4.0 GPA, a college scholarship, and a white girlfriend, Dan is tired of being called "Oriental" by his teachers, and frusturated that no one in his family understands how invisibile he feels. Sharing Dan's anger and isolation are his best friends, Jerry Ito, Eddie Kanegae , and Frank Ishimoto. Together, these Beacon Hill boys struggle to come of age in an America that would continue to see young Asian Americans assimilate rather than stir up the proverbial melting pot.
Extraordinary Asian
Pacific Americans Susan Sinnot (1993)
Biographical information.
Farewell to Manzanar
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston (1973)
The true story of one spirited Japanese American family's attempt to survive
the indignities of forced detention...and of a native-born American child
who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United
States.
The Invisible Thread,
Yoshiko Uchida (1991)
Growing up between two worlds. Growing up in CA, Yoshi knew her family
looked different from their neighbors. Still, she felt like an American.
But everything changed when America went to war against Japan. Along with
all the other Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, Yoshi's family were
rounded up and imprisoned in a crowded, badly built camp in the desert
because they "looked like the enemy." Yoshiko Uchida grew up
to be an award-winning author. This memoir of her childhood gives a personal
account of a shameful episode in American history.
Japanese American
Journey: The Story of a People JACP Inc. (1985)
Stories of Japanese Americans who have succeeded in the US with courage
and tenacity. Contains an historical section to give the reader a sense
of some of the significant events that took place in the lives of the
Japanese in the US.
Grades 5-8.
The Journal of Ben Uchida Barry Denenberg (1999)
The Journey
Painting and Text by Sheila Hamanaka (1990)
A brief account of the harrowing experience of Japanese immigrants to
the U.S. in the first half of the 20th century.
A Time to Fight
Back: True Stories of Wartime Resistance Jayne Pettit (1996)
In the years between 1939 and 1945, countless children in Europe and Asia
suffered the hardships and horrors of WWII. Many of these children waged
their own battles against forces of evil, in secret and often at the risk
of their lives. Pettit has focused on 8 young boys and girls caught in
the web of war: a deaf mute who rescued a downed fighter pilot, an 8-year
old Belgian boy who distributed an underground newspaper, 2 children--a
Japanese American girl and a British evacuee--displaced from their homes,
and others on both sides of the struggle whose lives were touched and
changed by the conflict. This book describes the experience of these remarkable
young people, each of whom found the courage to fight the enemy on their
own terms.