Resources

If you’d like to learn more about the Topaz concentration camp and the people who lived there, the following is a list of media available.

Books

  • Yuriko Jane Adachi (compiler). Memories Find Their Voices—Japanese American experiences during and after World War II. Mercurio Bros. Printing, 2008

  • Timothy Anglin. Great Nature: The Transcendent Landscapes of Chiura Obata. M. H. DeYoung Memorial Museum, 2000

  • Leonard J. Arrington. The Price of Prejudice: The Japanese-American Relocation Center in Utah During World War II. Topaz Museum, 2nd edition, 1997

  • Traci Chee. We Are Not Free. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020

  • Brian Komai Dempster ed. Making Home From War--Stories of the Japanese American Exile and Resettlement. Heyday, 2011

  • Margaret Bane Eberle. The Gem of the Desert – A Japanese-American Internment Camp. iUniverse, Inc., 2008

  • Darrell Y. Hamamoto ed. Blossoms in the Desert – Topaz High School Class of 1945. Giant Horse Printing, 2003

  • Hisako Hibi and Ibuki H. Lee. Peaceful Painter: Memoirs of an Issei Woman Artist. Heyday, 2004

  • Kimi Kodani Hill. Chiura Obata’s Topaz Moon: Art of the Internment. Heyday Books, 2000

  • Kiku Hughes. Displacement. FirstSecond (illus. edition), 2020

  • Susan H. Kamei. When Can We Go Back to America? Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2021 

  • Harry H. L. Kitano. Generations and Identity: The Japanese American. Ginn Press, 1993

  • Tsukayo “Sox” Kitashima & Joy K. Morimoto. Birth of an Activist: The Sox Kitashima Story. Asian American Curriculum Project, Inc. 2003

  • Minoru Kiyota. Beyond Loyalty – The Story of a Kibei. U. of Hawai’i Press, 1997

  • Amy Lee-Tai and Felicia Hoshino, illus. A Place Where Sunflowers Grow. Children’s Book Press An Imprint of Lee & Low Books, Inc., 2006

  • Toni Mar (Preface). Chiura Obata: A California Journey. The Oakland Museum, 1977

  • Toshio Mori. Unfinished Message – Selected Works of Toshio Mori. Santa Clara U./Heyday Books, 2000

  • Chiura Obata. Obata's Yosemite: Art and Letters of Obata from His Trip to the High Sierra in 1927. Yosemite Conservancy, Illustrated edition, 1993

  • Miné Okubo. Citizen 13660. U. of Washington Press, 1983

  • Julie Otsuka. When the Emperor Was Divine. Anchor Books A Division of Random House, Inc., 2003

  • Mark Rawitsch. The House on Lemon Street. U. Press of Colorado, 2012

  • Greg Robinson & Elena Tajima Creef eds. Miné Okubo – Following Her Own Road. U. of Washington Press, 2008

  • Ruth A. Sasaki. The Loom and Other Stories. Graywolf Press, 1991

  • Toyo Suyemoto. I Call to Remembrance: Toyo Suyemoto’s Years of Internment. Edited by Susan B. Richardson. Rutgers U. Press, 2007

  • Sandra C. Taylor. Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz. U. of California Press, 1993

  • Michael O. Tunnell. Desert Diary: Japanese American Kids Behind Barbed Wire. Charlesbridge, 2020  

  • Michael O. Tunnell and George W. Chilcoat. The Children of Topaz – The Story of a Japanese-American Internment Camp Based on a Classroom Diary. Revised Color Edition. CreateSpace, 2011

  • Yoshiko Uchida. Desert Exile – The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family. U. of Washington Press, 1982

                                 The Invisible Thread. Julian Messner Simon & Schuster, 1991

                                 Journey to Topaz – A Story of the Japanese-American Evacuation. Heyday Books, 1971

                                 Journey Home. Aladdin Paperbacks An imprint of Simon & Schuster, 1978

                                 Picture Bride. U. of Washington Press, 1987

  • ShiPu Wang. Chiura Obata An American Modern. Art, Design & Architecture Museum, U. of California Santa Barbara in association with the U. of California Press, 2018

  • gayle k. yamada and Dianne Fukami. Building A Community – The Story of Japanese Americans in San Mateo County. AACP, Inc., 2003

  • Karen Tei Yamashita. Letters to Memory. Coffee House Press, 2017

  • George Yoshida. Reminiscing in Swingtime: Japanese Americans in Popular Music, 1925 – 1960. National Japanese American Historical Society, 1997

Media

  • Jeff Adachi. You Don’t Know Jack – The Jack Soo Story. AAMM Productions, 2011 DVD Goro Suzuki biog.

  • California Historical Society. Day of Remembrance (EO 9066). CHS/Friends of Topaz, 2016 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXBEXkzQ9vM&t=2781s 

  • Emery Clay III, Stephen Holsapple and Satsuki Ina. From a Silk Cocoon. CA Civil Liberties Public Education Program/CAAM, 2006 DVD

  • Eric Paul Fournier. Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story. CAAM, 2000 DVD

  • Scott Gracheff. Dave Tatsuno: Movies and Memories. KTEH/KQED (Now PBS Utah), 2006 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F8GnVP4wvu&t=1360s

  • Dave Tatsuno. Topaz Memories. Library of Congress, 2006 8 mm color film

  • Ken Verdoia. Topaz. KUED U. of Utah, 1988 DVD


 Digital

Books about Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu: American civil liberties hero who successfully challenged Executive Order 9066 and the World War II exclusion and confinement (January 30, 1919 – March 30, 2005)

January 30—Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution (CA, HI, VA, FL, NYC, AZ)

https://korematsuinstitute.org

  • Laura Atkins & Stan Yogi. Fred Korematsu Speaks Up. Heyday, 2017

  • Lorraine K. Bannai. Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest for Justice. U. of Washington Press, 2018

  • Anupam Chandler, Mudhavi Sunder & Angelia Loi. Fred Korematsu: All American Hero. Carolina Academic Press, 2011

  • Steven A. Chin & David Tamura (illus.). When Justice Failed: The Fred Korematsu Story. Heinemann/Raintree, 1992

  • Roger Daniels. The Japanese American Cases: The Rule of Law in Time of War. University Press of Kansas, 2013

  • Peter Irons. Justice At War—The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases. U. of California Press, 1993

  • Karen Latchana Kenney & Melissa York. Korematsu vs the United States—Japanese American Internment Camps (Landmark Supreme Court Cases). Essential Library, 2011