Civil Rights and Japanese-American Internment

Comprehensive Unit189 pagesGrade Level: High School – Community CollegePublished 2001Includes teacher guide + 3 videos + 3 books This curriculum module offers students the opportunity to consider civil rights issues in the context of the Japanese-American experience during the immigration years and during World War II, and the legacies of these experiences as they impact Japanese Americans today. Although many state and national U.S. history standards highlight the Japanese-American internment experience, more often than not it is a topic that is treated without nuance. Because of spatial considerations, many U.S. history textbooks are forced to condense this historical episode into no more than a few pages. As a result, textbooks are forced to emphasize certain historical themes and to abandon others. The purpose of this curriculum module is to problematize notions that students have learned from textbooks; it is to teach students that history is not always as "cut and dry" as i