Japanese American Incarceration in WWII: A US History Inquiry

In addressing the compelling question (“What can we learn from the stories of Japanese Americans who stood up for their democratic rights and freedoms?”), students work through a series of supporting questions, formative performance tasks, and featured sources in order to construct an argument supported by a variety of evidence.

See the Inquiry Blueprint for an at-a-glance view of all inquiry materials.

While it may be adapted for a range of secondary-level classes, this inquiry is primarily designed for high school civics or history students. This inquiry is expected to take five to seven 50-minute class periods. 

Teachers are encouraged to adapt the inquiry​ in order to meet the needs and interests of their particular students as well as the available class time. Resources can also be modified as necessary to meet individualized education programs (IEPs) or Section 504 Plans for students with disabilities.

Mental health expert Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart defines historical trauma as “cumulative emotional and psychological wounding across generations” that arises from historical oppression, such as experiences of genocide, slavery, and racial violence ¹ . Engaging with the history of Japanese Americans’ incarceration and its legacy will be emotionally challenging for many students. But it may be especially difficult for students who have directly inherited the consequences of this historical trauma, or related traumas, tied to racial discrimination. 

In light of these challenges, building a foundation of community and care with your students is a prerequisite for teaching this historical content. Before you begin the unit, we recommend the following: 

1. Start with Yourself
   In order to develop classroom communities based on relationships and care, educators need to start with themselves. This involves reflecting on your individual identity and then becoming aware of your beliefs, values, biases, politics, and emotional responses to racism and racial violence. It also involves critically analyzing your teaching practices and content and committing to an anti-racist pedagogy that nurtures and empowers all students. Doing so enables you, as an educator, to be thoughtful about how you influence your interactions with and expectations of your students.
2. Center Relationships and Care: Connection, Predictability, Flexibility, and Empowerment
   Incorporating social-emotional learning (SEL) strategies to build relationships and develop empathy helps students feel connected to their learning and to one another (and the activities included in this unit are designed to do just that). This is especially important for students who have experienced trauma.
   
   Consultant and community college teacher Alex Shevrin Venet discusses four core priorities for trauma-informed instruction: connectedness, predictability, flexibility, and empowerment ² . At the heart of this approach are the relationships between students and teachers. When teachers make it a priority to cultivate these relationships and develop students’ SEL competencies, everyone benefits. 

• Connection
  When students have strong relationships with their teachers and peers, it is easier to support their emotional well-being and to respond to any urgent needs that arise. This connectedness is especially important as students are confronted with contemporary instances of racial violence that echo the themes of this unit. Students need regular reminders that their teachers care about them, and they need opportunities to connect with one another in informal and academic contexts. 
   
• Predictability
  By creating predictable routines and structures, teachers can help their students feel safe and emotionally secure. Implementing consistent routines, such as check-ins and journaling, can help students engage with the learning and support their emotional well-being.
   
• Flexibility
  Incorporating best practices in culturally responsive teaching and differentiation allows teachers to adopt a flexible approach to instruction and assessment. Prioritizing what really matters and engaging students in this process allows them to feel a sense of agency over their own learning. 


• Empowerment and Student Voice
  An SEL learning environment that takes into account the wide range of student experiences empowers students by including them in the class decision-making and provides them with authentic choices and tasks. Tapping into students’ expertise and interests and giving them voice and choice about their learning will develop their SEL competencies and their sense of agency.

• 1Smith College School for Social Work, “Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart Speaks on Historical Trauma,” Smith College website (Smith.edu).
• 2Kara Newhouse, “Four Core Priorities for Trauma-Informed Distance Learning,” MindShift, KQED.org, April 6, 2020.

This inquiry uses the term “incarceration” as opposed to “internment” to describe the forced imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II. This is based on recommendations from Japanese American survivors’ groups such as Denshō and the Japanese American Citizens League. They caution that the term “internment”—widely understood as the process of holding, for an indeterminate amount of time, civilians suspected of working for a country’s wartime enemy—has the effect of validating wartime suspicions about Japanese Americans that have since been disproven by scholars. Incarcerated Japanese Americans were never tried for a crime or even charged with wrongdoing. They were imprisoned solely because of their ancestry. This is why this inquiry uses the term “incarceration,” which is generally defined as “the act of confining someone.” This definition does not assign judgment to the reason why a person is detained. Please note that you will still see the word “internment” in the inquiry when it is quoted in materials from other organizations. 

Throughout the inquiry, students will encounter the term “incarceration camps,” and some might wonder why we chose that term over “concentration camps.” The term “concentration camp,” which refers to “a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard” accurately describes the wartime Japanese American experience. However, the term “concentration camp” is often associated with labor and death camps established by the Nazis during World War II. In the interest of clarity, and with respect to the particularities of each experience, we decided to use “incarceration camps” in this inquiry. 

Some scholars have noted that “internment” may still be used by those who experienced incarceration camps. We honor their right and choice to use that language.

If you would like to explore questions about language in reference to this history with your students, see our lesson Words Matter: Listening to Survivors about Language for Describing Japanese American Incarceration.

Throughout the inquiry, communities of Japanese ancestry incarcerated during World War II are referred to as “Japanese Americans.” We acknowledge, however, that those who were incarcerated during this period had different immigration and citizenship statuses. (Of the approximately 110,000 people incarcerated, approximately 70,000 were American citizens.) But, as students will learn in this inquiry, people of Japanese descent who were not born in the United States, along with most other immigrants of Asian descent, were subjected to discriminatory laws that barred them from becoming naturalized citizens until the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952. In many cases, these individuals were part of longstanding communities in the United States and had deep ties and attachments to the nation. For these reasons, we consciously use the term “Japanese Americans” to describe all people incarcerated in the United States during this period, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. 

In the activities for Supporting Question 1, students work extensively with a timeline of events related to the discrimination of Asians in the United States from 1790–1942. Consider posting the timeline around the classroom before beginning this inquiry in order to build interest and anticipation from students in advance of these activities.

Consider pairing this inquiry with our guide for the graphic memoir, They Called Us Enemy. The memoir explores actor and activist George Takei’s experiences of incarceration. Our guide accompanying the graphic memoir includes activities and discussion questions designed to spark critical thinking and conversations around issues of identity, belonging, democracy, freedom, and justice.

This inquiry provides an opportunity for students to interview community members and also to potentially share what they learned with stakeholders outside of the school. Our goal is for students to have opportunities to see that their communities are rich sites of study, that everyone has expertise that can further educate the school community, and that their own firsthand observations can yield valuable information. 

Students will need support and guidance to connect with community members to interview. Parents and caregivers will need to give permission and arrange for a trusted adult to accompany students if they conduct interviews outside of school or share their findings in the community if they choose that activity for their informed action. 

It is also important to note that conducting in-person interviews in their communities may not be feasible for all students, and it is not required in order for students to have a rich learning experience in this inquiry. We recommend that you provide students with the option to meet with interviewees via video conference, email, phone, or letter exchange. Some students may be able to interview caregivers, relatives, friends, neighbors, or members of your school community to complete their research assignments. You might also bring featured speakers from the community into the classroom so that students can fulfill their conversation assignments during class time and even as a group.

Regardless of your approach, please also consult district policies and consider what communication you should have with parents and caregivers before assigning students to contact members of the community.