Ep. 02 | Aki’s Story: On Relocation and Resilience

Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Feb. 19, 1942, authorizing the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. In this edition of The Deeper Learning Podcast, we take a look at how this order connected the Mendez and Munemitsu families.

In our last episode, we learned how Sylvia Mendez and her family challenged school segregation in Orange County, Calif. Aki’s story serves as a prequel to the Mendez case, and it illustrates how the Munemitsu family — one of thousands to be relocated to internment camps during the war — persevered, rebuilt their lives and went on to make extraordinary contributions to American society through resilience, education and generosity.

Produced by the Orange County Department of Education and hosted by Chief Academic Officer Jeff  Hittenberger.

Ep. 02-Transcript

Resources:

Conkling, W. (2011). Sylvia and Aki.  New York, NY: Yearling.

Dempster, B. K., (Ed.). (2011). Making Home from War. Berkeley, CA: Heyday.

George S., & Haider, C. F. (2009). Sowing Dreams, Cultivating Lives: Nikkei Farmers in Pre-World War II Orange County.  Fullerton, California: Center for Oral and Public History, California State University, Fullerton.

Ina, S.  (1999). Children of the Camps. [Documentary]. (Available from Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/Children-Camps-Howard-Ikemoto/dp/B00BYCWIQ2).

Oppenheim, J. (2006). Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Shigekawa, M. (Executive Producer). (2017). For the Sake of the Children. [Documentary]. (Information about availability and screening at http://www.forthesakeofchildren.org/).

Urashima, M.F.A. (2014). Historic Wintersburg in Huntington Beach. Charleston, SC: The History Press.

Wakatsuki Houston, J., & Houston, J.D. (1973). Farewell to Manzanar. New York, NY: Houghton-Mifflin.

Wegland, M.N. (1996).  Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps.  Seattle: University of Washington Press.

See also:

Densho.org, A website offering extraordinary resources of oral history and information regarding the internment experiences of Japanese-Americans.

Japanese-American National Museum.  This extraordinary museum in Los Angeles currently hosts an original copy of Executive Order 9066, with FDR’s signature.  See http://www.janm.org/.

 

Ep. 01 | Mendez v. Westminster

Hosted by Jeff Hittenberger, chief academic officer for the Orange County Department of Education, the first episode of the Deeper Learning Podcast centers on a profoundly significant court case that’s probably unfamiliar to most Americans. Mendez v. Westminster shattered many of the legal justifications for segregating public schools and laid the foundation for the famous Brown v. Board of Education decision. And it all started with one family from Orange County, Calif.

Produced by the Orange County Department of Education

Ep. 01 Transcript

Resources:

Bernstein, S. (2011). Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Strum, P. (2010). Mendez v Westminster: School Desegregation and Mexican-American Rights. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

Tonatiuh, D. (2014). Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation. New York: Abrams.

Wenkart, R. D. (2016). Mendez v. Westminster School District. Inquiry and Analysis, December 2016.

Mendez v. Westminster painting (image) was commissioned by Justice Eileen Moore for the California Court of Appeals, Fourth District. It was created by students from the Orange County Department of Education’s Alternative, Community, and Correctional Schools and Services (ACCESS), Otto A. Fischer School. Teachers: Ruth Rosen and Sam Lightbody.  Student artists: Andrew K., Kaylee F., Jose C., Abraham V., Stacy Lynn R., and Juan G.