Activity Guide for Parents & Teachers by Ashley Ng
Activity Guide for Parents & Teachers by Ashley Ng
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Po Po Says / Activity Guide for Parents & Teachers
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Dear Parents and Teachers,
You know how important tolerance is. Tolerance is accepting and respecting others for who they are. The United States is a rich blend of cultural traditions from all over the world. So, tolerance is very important with so many different types of people. Tolerance is at the center of Po Po Says. The different stories in Po Po Says talk about the different struggles that Asian Americans endured from intolerance and how they surpassed this and succeeded. Sharing the stories of Po Po Says helps children understand how intolerance is bad. Today, more than ever, kids interact with people of differing ethnicities, religions, and cultures. Classrooms are increasingly divers, reflecting the communities where families live and work. Po Po Says and the suggested activities in this guidebook will help connect your children to language arts, reading and writing, social studies, history, and art curicula. There’s also even more interesting fun and information just for the adults who would like to learn more about the true stories told in Po Po Says.
Yours Truly,
Po Po
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Po Po Says / Activity Guide for Parents & Teachers
Contents Overview The Po Po Says Parent and Teachers guide contains eight pre-planned activities for children. As well as more detailed information to educate parents and teachers on the history taught in Po Po Says.
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Just for Kids Fun Activities To Do With children 06 Pre-Reading
12 History
08 Language Arts
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Creative Writing/Poetry
09 Vocabulary
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Creative Writing/Chinese
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Visual Arts
Social Studies: Oral History
Just for Adults Brief Summaries of Events In Asian American History 22
The Manila Men
48 Japanese Internment
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Chinese Gold Miners
58 Nisei Soldiers
34 Chinese Railroad Workers
66 The Boat People
40 Asian Immigrants
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Asian American Studies Protesters
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Just for Kids Fun Activities To Do With Children
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01. Pre-Reading Show your class the jacket of Po Po Says. Tell them the book is the story of a little girl who goes to her grandmothers house and listens to different stories about Asian American history. Ask them if they ever have someone tell them stories. Have the class speculate what Asian American history might be and have them write it down. After the class has read the book, have the children return to their notes. Did anyone come close to guessing what Asian American history might be? Give them a chance to examine their own notes once more. If they want to change them as a result of what they learned from Po Po Says, they should do so and make any edits they’d like. In discussion, point out that while the different people in Asian American history lived great lives in the United States, they struggled to get to those great lives because other people did not initially respect or accept them. What can your students do to be tolerant and to be accepting of others?
STANDARDS Language Arts/Reading • Previews text • Makes, confirms, and revises simple predictions about what will be found in texts • Establishes a purpose for reading • Understands the author’s purpose • Knows themes that recur across literary works • Makes connections between characters or simple events in a literary work and people in his or her life
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02. Language Arts As the children read the story and look at the illustrations, have them write down their thoughts on some of the situations that occurred. For example: internment camps and being forced to leave their homes, gold miners not being nice because of the way you look, etc. Ask them if they think was fair and not fair, and how would they feel if they were in the same situation.
STANDARDS
Language Arts/Reading • Makes connections between characters or simple events in a literary work and people in his or her life • Uses prior knowledge and experience to understand and respond to new information • Language Arts/Writing • Writes in response to literature
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03. Vocabulary Your children will come across vocabulary in Po Po Says that are unfamiliar to them. Some of those words are listed below. Use the Po Po Says flash cards to help the children memorize these words. Take a card and show the illustration to the children. Ask them if they can guess what it is. Then show them the definition on the back and read aloud to them.
Galleon
Asian American Studies
Together
Asian
Nisei Soldiers
Patience
Brave
Angel Island
World War II
Persevere
Po Po
Internment
Tolerant
Boat People
Immigrants
Vietnam
Determined
Hope
Gold Rush
Golden Spike
Protest
Japanese American
Manila Men
STANDARDS
Language Arts/Reading • Uses a variety of context clues to decode unknown words • Understands level-appropriate vocabulary
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04. Social Studies: Oral History Reading Po Po Says opens up different periods of history and the experiences either coming to the United States or the struggles they went through to live in the United States. Their own stories about their ancestors can do the same. The various stories within Po Po Says should make your children curious to learn about their ancestors’ stories. Invite them to satisfy that curiosity with an oral history project. Much of the work for this project will be done at each child’s home. It will involve phone calls, e-mails, and letters, and it’s likely that the children will need their parent’s help. To begin, have your students brainstorm questions they can use to interview family members who know a little about their family lineage. Using some of details in Po Po Says as a starting point, make a list of possible questions, such as the ones below: •
Where did our ancestors come from?
•
How many generations of our family have lived in the U.S.?
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What kind of job did have when they came?
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Why do you think our ancestors came to the U.S.?
Family Stories
STANDARDS
Expand your children’s oral history project with stories. Remind students that just like in Po Po Says, history is not made up of only facts and details, but is also a collection of the stories of people who live in different times and different places. Students or their parents may be able to make tape recordings of their family member telling favorite stories from their childhoods. Some family members might be able to create video recordings, as well. Others might narrate stories that children can write down. Or parents can tell an old family story. The children should present their work in an oral presentation or a written narrative.
Language Arts/Reading • Uses strategies to plan written work • Writes narrative accounts • Writes biographical compositions Listening and Speaking • Makes basic oral presentations • Organizes ideas for oral presentations • Listens to classmates and adults • Understands that language reflects different regions and cultures
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05. History In their interviews with their family members, your children found out when and what country their ancestors came from. Have your children bring in a world map and have them mark where their family came from. Some children might have ancestors from more than country. They can chose one country or can pick as many countries as they want. Remind them that all people in America is an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant. Even Native Americans originally migrated to the Americas more than 15,000 years ago. Have them research about the cultural traditions of that country or countries and allow them to share their findings as a presentation or a written narrative.
STANDARDS
Your children will find many of the answering online. They can use Google and type in a specific phrase such as “Russia” or “Iran.” Each student should use his or her findings to create a poster and present to their classmates.
• Writes expository compositions
Language Arts/Reading • Uses reading skills and strategies to understand a variety of informational texts Language Arts/Writing • Uses electronic media to gather information • Uses strategies to edit and publish written work
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06. Creative Writing/Poetry In Po Po Says, we learn that immigrants on Angel Island had to wait patiently for a very long time to enter the United States. Many of them carved poetry into the walls about their isolation and struggles on the island. Some wrote about what they dreamed of doing once they were allowed to enter the United States.
STANDARDS
Have your children write a poem about something in their lives that they would wait patiently for. It could be anything that they hope and dream for. A good poetic form for young writers is haiku. Haiku is an unrhymed three-lined verse form with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the third. Help them with their first line by starting out with “I wait patiently.” Have them read their poems aloud, then display the poems on the wall.
• Writes for different purposes
Language Arts/Writing • Writes in response to literature • Writes narrative accounts, such as poems and stories
Listening and Speaking • Contributes to group discussions • Listens to classmates • Makes basic oral presentations
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07. Creative Writing/Chinese Chinese is written in a pictograph characters, very different from English. Each symbol stands for a word. Use the Po Po Says flash cards to show your children the Chinese characters that stand for the morals in the book.
STANDARDS
Language Arts/Writing • Writes in response to literature • Writes narrative accounts such as poems and stories
Visit www.tightlyknit.org to find free worksheets for children to practice writing some of the symbols, copying them closely. Then they should write a simple story integrating the Chinese characters with English.
Art Connections • Knows how ideas are expressed in various art forms • Knows how visual elements are used in various art forms
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08. Visual Arts When Po Po gives Ella the scarf she knitted she says, “Just like this scarf we are all tightly knit. Each loop of yarn represents a different person. And together, we create something strong and beautiful.” Give your children the chance to learn to knit like Po Po.
STANDARDS
Visual Arts • Uses a variety of basic art materials • Knows how different media, techniques, and processes are used to communicate ideas
MATERIALS FOR KNITTING
• Yarn • Size 7 or 8 knitting needles • Tape measure • scissors
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How to Knit Step 1
Use only one needle. Measure a length of yarn that will give you about 1� for each stitch to be cast on. Make a yarn loop, leaving about 4� of yarn at the free end; insert the needle into the loop and draw up the yarn from the free end to make a loop on the needle.
Step 2
Pull the yarn ends firmly, but not too tightly to form the slip knot on the needle. This slip knot counts as your first stitch.
Step 3
Hold the needle with the slip knot in your right hand and with yarn from the skein to your left. With your left hand, make a yarn loop.
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Step 4
Still holding the loop in your left hand, with your right hand, pick up the yarn from the skein and bring it back to front around the needle.
Step 5
Bring the needle through the loop and toward you; at the same time, pull gently on the yarn end to tighten the loop. Make it snug but not tight below the needle. You have now cast on one stitch. Repeat Steps 1 through 3 for each additional stitch required.
Step 6
Hold the needle with the cast-on stitches in your left hand. Insert the point of the right needle into the first stitch, from right to left.
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Step 7
With right index finger, bring the yarn under and over the point of the right needle.
Step 8
With right needle, pull the yarn back through the stitch.
Step 9
Slip the loop on the left needle off, so the new stitch is entirely on the right needle.
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Step 10
When a piece is finished, you need to get it off the needles. This is called binding off, and here is how to do it. Knit the first 2 stitches. Now insert the leftneedle into the first of the 2 stitches.
Step 11
Draw the first stitch up and over the second stitch and completely off the needle. You have now bound off one stitch.
Step 11
Knit one more stitch; insert left needle into the first stitch on the rightneedle and draw it up and over the new stitch and completely off the needle.Another stitch is now bound off. Repeat Step 11 until all the stitches are bound off and one loop remains on the right-hand needle. Now to “finish off” or “end off” the yarn, cut it and draw end through the last loop to tighten.
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Just for Adults Brief Summaries of Asian American History
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Manila Men Work Together
Filipino men began arriving in Louisiana as early as 1765, arguably establishing the first Asian community in North America. They came by way of the Spanish galleon trade between Manila and Acapulco. Filipinos were seafaring people, and they arrived as sailors and navigators on Spanish galleons, departing the ships as they traveled between Spain’s two colonies of Manila and Acapulco. The Manila Galleons were Spanish trading ships that sailed once or twice per year across the Pacific Ocean between Manila in Spanish East Indies (present dayPhilippines), and Acapulco, New Spain (present-day Mexico).
Harper’s Weekly. (1883) from Lafcadio Hearn’s article on the Manila Men.
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Galleons The name changed reflecting the city that the ship was sailing from. The trade route was inaugurated in 1565 with the discovery of the ocean passage by Andrés de Urdaneta, and continued until 1815 when the Mexican War of Independence put a permanent stop to the galleon trade route. The route was the first instance of trade truly becoming global. Some of the sailors who jumped ship to escape servitude on the galleons made their way from Mexico to Louisiana.
The Manila Men were able to adapt their seafood harvesting skills to fishing and shrimping Louisiana’s coastal waters, and the typhoons of their homeland somewhat prepared them for its precarious weather. M o s t o f w ha t i s k n o w n ab o u t t h e M a n i l a Men comes from a detailed firsthand account. Lacfcadio Hearn, a journalist and writer credited
with exposing wide audiences to Louisiana cuisine, voodoo, and other local topics, visited Saint Malo in 1883 and recorded his impressions of the settlement in an article for Harper’s Weekly. Hearn pegs the beginning of the Filipino settlement of Saint Malo to the 1830s, and describes a natural setting that is hardly enviable: incessant clouds of biting and stinging insects, enormous spiders, chickens and pigs molested by crabs and carried off by alligators. Hearn’s imagery makes it easy to understand why Saint Malo’s residents, nearly all male, kept their families far away from them in New Orleans. Despite the lack of families, the demand for seafood kept the village busy. They were able to adapt their seafood-har vesting skills to fishing and shrimping Louisiana’s coastal waters, and the typhoons of their homeland somewhat prepared them for its precarious weather. On coastal marshes the Filipinos built housing in their traditional style. These “stilt villages” comprised living structures that were raised completely above the ground, about 10 feet high.
Fisher Shrimp Company in Manila Village Louisiana. (1920) The Louisiana Digital Library
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Ev e n t h o u g h Sa i n t M a l o , L o u i s i a n a w as very isolated, its residents created and mainta i n e d t h e i r o w n h i e ra r c h y a n d j u s t i c e system that was closely modeled on traditional customs. The houses of Saint Malo, built on stilts over the marsh in the traditional Tagalog style, were sketched by an artist travelling with Hearn, preserving a visual record of the Philippine village in the marshes of St. Bernard Parish. Though Hearn’s prose at times may lead to suspicions of romanticizing the residents of Saint Malo, he is also good enough to future historians by noting involvement in a New Orleans benevolent society (La Union Philippina) and other useful social and cultural information, such as the prevalence of Latin names and the form of poetry used to pass dull hours. The village described by Lafcadio Hearn remained until 1915, when it was destroyed by a particularly powerful hurricane. While Saint Malo is fascinating, an even larger Filipino fishing community could be found just south of New Orleans. It was called Manila Village, founded in the 1880s by (perhaps) Jacinto Quintin de la
Scott, Samuel. (1772) Manila Galleon.
Cruz, lay at the back of Barataria Bay 15 miles north of Grand Isle. In the 1890s, up to 300 Filipino and Mexican shrimpers i n hab i t e d t h e village, where they added a traditional twist to shrimp trade.
Shrimp Harvesting Filipinos, along with other Asian immigrants, developed the first major shrimp harvesting and processing establishments on the Gulf Coast, such as Manila Village, Bassa Bassa, and other settlements. Their towns filled the coast with extensive raised platforms used to dry shrimp in the sun. Here they would perform ancient Chinese rituals of “dancing the shrimp,” a method for removing the heads and shells from dried shrimp. On Fifi Island, just behind Grand Isle, remnants of a shrimp-drying platform established in the 1870s still exist today.
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Chinese Gold Miners Stay Determined
The Chinese immigration to America escalated into a tidal wave of fortune seekers following the discovery of gold in California in 1848. This wave of immigration was one for which the American West had little time in which to prepare or adjust. The first U.S. Census report on Asian population in 1830 recorded a total of only three Chinese living within the boundaries of the United States. Although this number is doubtlessly undercounted, there is no question that Asian Americans were not a common feature of American life p r i o r t o t h i s t i m e. I n ea r l y 1 8 4 9 , i m m i g ra t i o n r e c o r d s recorded that there were only 54 Chinese men in the state of California. But this began to change dramatically as the news of gold being discovered in California spread across the oceans.
TOP White and Chinese miners during California Gold Rush at Auburn Ravine. (1852) CA State Library. BOTTOM Muybridge, Eadweard. (1830–1904) The Heathen Chinee Prospecting. California Digital Library.
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flooding and famine threatened to wipe out families in the Guangdong Province in southeast China. As news of the "Gold Mountain" in California spread, Chinese men rushed to the area hoping to capture some small part of the rumored mountain of wealth. Many originally came with the idea of making their fortune then returning home to China.
Against the Chinese Welcome to America During the mid-19th century, China was undergoing one of the most challenging times of its existence. T h e Ta i p i n g R eb e l l i o n ha d l e f t t h e n a t i o n d evas ta t e d a n d s t ru g g l i n g u n d e r bu r d e n o f p o v e r t y a n d ruin. British warships destroyed m a n y o f t h e C h i n es e m a j o r p o r ts d u r i n g t h e O p i u m W a r. S h o r t l y af t e rwa r d , severe
This situation did not last long, as Americans poured into California in search of the "big strike" that would make them rich. As placer deposits gave out and the promise of riches was reduced to only a fortunate few, the miners began to see the Chinese as a threat to their dreams of fortune. In bitter disappointment the gold rush miners turned against the industrious workers they had once praised and began to plot methods to prevent them from capturing a share of the rapidly dwindling gold supply. Some Chinese Californians c ha l l e n g e d A m e r i c a n ra c i s m b y o r ga n i z i n g
ABOVE Heading of East Portal, Tunnel No. 8. NEXT PAGE Chinese Laborers, 1880s.
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unions, as well as through the legal system and in the court of public opinion. Chinese community leaders petitioned Sacramento to overturn unfair laws and worked to gain the right to testify in court (finally granted in 1872).
Discrimination By the 1870s, Chinese Californians faced discrimin a t i o n a n d o u t r i g h t v i o l e n c e. A n e c o n o m i c downturn during this decade heightened job competition and encouraged anti-Chinese xenopho b ia. So-ca lle d “ a nt i - c o o l i e c l u bs ” f o rm e d throughout the state (even though the Chinese w e r e n ’ t “ c o o l i es , ” a t e r m r ef e r r i n g t o t h o s e coerced or deceived into migration, or indentured servants) to denounce Chinese immigration. White Americans turned to violence and tried as much as they could to torment the Chinese.
White mobs attacked Chinese communities up and down California, climaxing in an all-out assault on San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1877.
California politicians buckled to this mounting pressure and helped pass The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. This federal ban on Chinese immigration was the first such law in US history to explicitly exclude a group of people based on their race.
Daily Life Despite this restriction on immigration, Chinese communities continued to thrive such as, San F ra n c i s c o ’ s C h i n a t o w n . F ew w o m e n i m m i grated to the United States, as the labor market demanded men for manual labor. Although the majority of Chinese migrants at this time were men, there was also family life.
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Railroad Workers Work Hard
In 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, Congress authorized the most ambitious project that the country had ever contemplated: construction of a transcontinental railroad. The price tag was immense: $136 million, more than twice the federal budget in 1861. The challenge was enormous; 1,800 miles across arid plains and desert and the rugged granite walls of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains. There were two companies that undertook the actual construction in return for land grants and financial subsidies worth from $16,000 to $48,000 a mile. The Union Pacific began to lay down track westward from Omaha, Nebraska. The Central Pacific lay track eastward from Sacramento, California. Which ever company laid the most track would receive the largest federal subsidy.
TOP North Pacific Coast R.R. at Corte Madera, CA. (1898) Photo Credit: California Digital Library. BOTTOM Chinese workers in Wyoming. California Digital Library.
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Recruiting the Chinese In February, 1865, the Central Pacific decided to try a new labor pool. Charles Crocker, chief of construction persuaded his company to employ Chinese immigrants, arguing that the people who build the Great Wall of China and invented gunpowder could certainly build a railroad across the United States of America.
Over 12,000 Chinese laborers were employed as rail workers, comprising about 80 percent of the Central Pacific Railroad’s workforce. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, civil turmoil and poverty had led many Chinese to emigrate to California, the "Golden Mountain." As early as 1852, there were 25,000 Chinese immigrants in California. Most came from China's southeastern coast. The overwhelming majority were married men who planned to return to China. In California, the immigrants
established support networks, based on family ties and place of origin, and found work in agriculture, mines, domestic service, and increasingly in railroad construction. The work ethic of the Chinese impressed James Strobridge, the foreman of construction, as did their willingness to do the dangerous work of blasting areas for track in the treacherous Sierra Nevada, an effort that cost some Chinese laborers their lives. Chinese workers even helped lay a record ten miles of track in just twelve hours, shortly before the railroad was completed. The Chinese dedication to the Central Pacific was even more impressive in light of the racial discrimination they experienced. California law prevented them from obtaining full citizenship, but still mandated that they pay taxes to the state of California. In addition, the Chinese were paid only $27 a month (later rising to $30 a month), significantly less than the $35 a month that Irish laborers on the Central Pacific earned for doing the same work. Incredibly, the Chinese
TOP John Chinaman on the rail road: Union Pacific Rail Road. (1867) BOTTOM The Trestle Bridge at Newcastle, Central Pacific Railroad. (1860/1870) Society of California Pioneers.
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immigrant workers saved as much as $20 a month which many eventually used to buy land. These workers quickly earned a reputation as tireless and extraordinarily reliable workers—”quiet, peaceable, patient, industrious, and economical.” The work was grueling, performed almost entirely by hand. With pickaxes, hammers, and crowbars, workers chipped out railbeds. To carve out a rail bed from ridges that jutted up 2,000 over the valley below, Chinese immigrants were lowered in baskets to hammer at solid shale and granite and insert dynamite. Their only safety was to rely on their ability to move out of the way as quickly as possible before the dynamite exploded. During the winter of 1865-1866, when the railroad carved passages through the summit of the Sierra Nevadas, 3,000 lived and worked i n tu n n e l s dug beneath 4 0 - f o o t s n o w d r i f ts. Accidents, avalanches, and explosions left as estimated 1,200 Chinese immigrant workers dead. Although they risked their lives and worked tirelessly, their effort was not recognized during the
ceremony of the last golden spike. The famous photo on the left of the golden spike ceremony shows men posing in celebration of the completion of the railroad. But you’ll notice that there are no Chinese in the photo.
The Unknown Legacy Hu n d r e d s o f C h i n es e w o r k e rs ha d d i e d i n construction blasts, cave-ins, and avalanches. Some of the survivors returned to mining or went on to build other railroad lines in the American west and in Canada. Others returned to California to face a fight for dignity, respect, and equality— even within the labor movement—that lasted many more decades. But the railroad helped to bind together a great country t ha t , i n c r e m e n ta l l y a n d s t i l l i n c o m pletely, has become perhaps the most egalitarian and democratic nation the world has ever known. These struggles continue.
TOP The Trestle Bridge at Newcastle, Central. California Digital Library. BOTTOM Completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. National Archives and Records Administration.
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Angel Island Immigrants Be Patient
The Angel Island Immigration Station was an immigrant processing facility on Angel Island, in the San Francisco Bay. It opened in 1910 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is now the site of a museum. The museum and grounds were renovated and reopened to the public in February 2009. President Barack Obama, on the day of his inauguration declared January 21 as national Angel Island Day in honor of all the immigrants who suffered long periods of detention before they were admitted to America. Asian immigration can be dated back to “1788 with a crew of Chinese shipbuilders, carpenters, metal workers, and sailors.� The government responded to the influx of immigration by instating a series of exclusion acts.
TOP Male detainees fill the detainee barracks on Angel Island and pose for the camera. BOTTOM Chinese women and children inside the detention barracks.
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Immigrant perspectives The predominantly Chinese immigrants who were detained at Angel Island were not welcomed in the United States. As recounted by one detained in 1940: “When we arrived, they locked us up like criminals in compartments like the cages at the zoo.” Held in these “cages” for weeks, often months, individuals were subjected to rounds of interrogations to assess the legitimacy of their immigration applications.
When we arrived, they locked us up like we were criminals in compartments like the cages at the zoo.” Held in these “cages” for weeks, often months, individuals were subjected to rounds of interrogations T h es e i n t e r r o ga t i o n s w e r e l o n g , t i r i n g , a n d stressful. Immigrants were made to recall minute details about their home and claimed relations— how many steps led up to your front door?
Who lived in the third house in the second row of houses in your village? The interpreters for the proceedings may have not have spoken the particular dialect of the immigrant competently; most Chinese immigrants were from southern China at that time, many spoke Cantonese. It was difficult to pass the interrogations, and cases were appealed many times over before one could leave the island and enter the United States. Often, successful immigrants produced elaborate instruction manuals that coached fellow detainees in passing interrogations; if anyone was caught with these manuals, they would most likely be deported.
Written on the Walls Numerous car vings and writings in several languages have been found on the barracks walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station. Some are simple statements, the equivalent of "I was here" or a name with a date. Still other writings have yet to be translated and understood.
Group of Japanese women standing in a line on an immigration ship. (circa 1925).
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The overwhelming majority of these remarkable writings, however, are poems written in Chinese, many of them were carved into the wooden walls. More than 135 of these poems have been recorded. Many of the poems are still visible on the walls; others are obscured by aging wood or layers of paint. The poems express a
range of thoughts and feelings—longing, sorrow, and personal avowals—about dealing with the hardships of migrating so far from home and the difficult conditions. The poets describe the poverty they left behind, the family hopes and dreams that accompanied them in their quest for a new life, and the frustration with China’s
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political situation and chronic poverty. They also offer advice to successive generations of wouldbe immigrants, encouraging them to work hard, to treasure the precious opportunity to do well in America, and to remember those left behind.
Many of the poems were very likely composed by several authors working in succession. There contain many references to famous literary or folk heroes, Confucius, and other figures in Chinese folklore known to have faced hard times.
The poems were probably written by those who were detained for long periods or those awaiting deportation. The majority are unsigned and undated, but they were most likely written before 1930s. Such references reveal that the authors were highly literate and well educated. Many of the detainees turned to poetry as expression—they spilled their emotions onto the very walls that contained them. Some of the poems are bitter and angry, others placid and contemplative; all, however, read with a heavy sadness.
The people who wrote the poems were primarily Chinese who spoke the Cantonese and Toisanese dialects. When read aloud, many of the poems rhyme in those dialects, but they do not always rhyme in Mandarin. Immigrants were detained weeks, months, sometimes even years. Word got back to China about the prolonged questioning, so people would try to mentally prepare before even crossing the Pacific Ocean.
TOP IMAGE Japanese “picture brides” lined up opposite their future husbands, ready to disembark at Angel Island. UNDERNEATH Political comic strip about the Chinese Exclusion Act.
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A poem carved into the walls at Angel Island. Author unknown.
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Internment Always Persevere
At 7:55 AM on Sunday, December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese warplanes, launched from aircraft carriers far out at sea, attacked the American Pacific fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack took a terrible toll: eight battleships, including the USS Arizona, three light cruisers, three destroyers and four other naval vessels were either sunk or damaged. O n e hu n d r e d a n d s i x t y - f o u r American aircraft were also destroyed. Most hadn’t even gotten off the ground. And 2,403 Americans, servicemen and civilians, were dead. Nothing like this had ever happened to the United States of America before.
TOP Lee, Russell. Baggage of Japanese Americans evacuated from West coast areas. BOTTOM Exclusion Order posted to direct Japanese Americans living in the first San Francisco section to evacuate.
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“As far as I’m concerned, I was born here, and according to the Constitution that I studied in school, that I had the Bill of Rights that should have backed me up. And until the very minute I got onto the evacuation train, I says, ‘It can’t be.’ I says, ‘How can they do that to an American?” — Robert Kashiwagi, Japanese American Internee
LEFT Letter from Paul H. Kusuda to Afton Nance, 1942 May 20. BOTTOM RIGHT Japanese American Girl headed for Internment Camp, California. TOP RIGHT San Bruno, CA. Horse stalls were converted into family living quarters. Photo credit: Dorothea Lange
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Seventeen-year-old Daniel Inouye, the son of a Japanese immigrant, was a senior at William McKinley High School in Honolulu—and a Red Cross volunteer. “All of a sudden, three aircraft flew right overhead. They were pearl gray with red dots on the wing–Japanese,” Inouye said. “I knew what was happening. And I thought my world had just come to an end.” That day altered the world for all Americans; for tens of thousands of Japanese Americans—particularly those living on the West Coast—life was about to change dramatically. On February 19, 1942, just over two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Its tone was carefully neutral: It authorized the War Department to designate “military areas” and then exclude anyone from them whom it felt to be a danger. But it had a specific target: the more than 110,000 Japanese Americans living along the West Coast, whom the order would soon force into internment camps. Thousands of German and Italian
aliens living in the U.S. would also be locked up, but millions of German and Italian-American citizens would remain free to live their lives as they always had. Only Japanese A m e r i ca n s w e r e singled out. “It took no great effort of imagination to see the hatred of many Americans for the enemy turned on us, who looked so much like him,” observed Inouye.
Government Plan At first, plans had been drawn up in Washington for the wholesale internment of all 158,000 people of Japanese descent living in Hawaii too—nearly 40 percent of the total population of the islands. But wealthy landowners in Hawaii opposed the plan; they depended on Japanese field workers to tend their sugar and pineapple plantations. And the presence of a massive the United States military force on the islands made the danger of an internal threat seem less and less plausible. In the end, Japanese Americans in Hawaii would be allowed to go about their lives more or less as
Persons of Japanese ancestry arrive at the Santa Anita Assembly Center from San Pedro, April 5, 1942. Photograph by Clem Albers.
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they always had. But their counterparts on the West Coast would find themselves the subject of an anti-Japanese frenzy that seemed immune to reason. While they represented a tiny portion o f t h e p o p u l a t i o n , J a p a n es e A m e r i c a n s o n the West Coast had long been special targets of white hostility. Laws and customs shut out Japanese Americans from full participation in economic and civic life for decades. Japanese immigrants—known as Issei—could not own land, eat in white restaurants, or become naturalized citizens. But the American-born descendants of Japanese immigrants—called Nisei—were citizens by birthright, and many had become successful in business and farming. Pearl Harbor gave whites a chance to renew their hostility toward their J a p a n es e n e i g hb o rs — i t a l s o o f f e r e d w h i t e growers and business interests an opportunity to agitate anew for the elimination of unwanted competitors. Within days of Pearl Harbor, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover assured the U.S. Attorney General
that “practically all” suspected individuals were already in custody, and there was no need for mass evacuations of Japanese for security reasons. But Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, pushed for wholesale Japanese evacuation. “The Japanese race is an enemy race,” DeWitt wrote, “and while many second and third generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted.”
Internment Approved West Coast congressmen also agitated for the removal of the Japanese. Los Angeles representative Leland Ford insisted that “all Japanese, whether citizens or not, be placed in concentration camps.” In the end, political pressure prevailed, and the army was empowered to force all West Coast Americans from their homes. All across the West, relocation notices were
A University of California graduate of Japanese descent, placed the I AM AN AMERICAN sign on the store front on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. Photographer: Lange, Dorothea—Oakland. 3/13/42
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posted on April 30, 1942. All people of Japanese a n c es t r y — i n c l u d i n g t h o s e w i t h o n l y 1 / 1 6 t h Japanese blood—were given one week to settle their affairs. Farmers desperately looked to neighbors to help take care of their crops, but like many Japanese-American business owners, they faced financial ruin. Families lost everything, forced to sell off homes, shops, furnishings, even the clothes they couldn’t carry with them, to buyers happy to snap them up for next to nothing. Almost no one protested the government’s decision, and m o s t n o n - J a p a n es e t o o k t h e eva cu a t i o n s i n stride. But some were troubled by the removal of their friends and neighbors. “These students that we were going to school with, they were like our family,” said Dolores Silva of Sacramento, California. 110,000 Japanese Americans up and down the Pacific coast were assigned numbers and herded to ill-equipped, over-crowded assembly centers at stockyards, fairgrounds, and race tracks, from which they then would be reassigned to one
of ten internment camps: Amache in Colorado, Heart Mountain in Wyoming, Gila River and Poston in Arizona, Minidoka in Idaho, Jerome and Rowher in Arkansas, Topaz in Utah and Manzanar and Tule Lake in California. The internment camps were generally located in remote, desert areas. Internees lived in rickety barracks barely heated by wood stoves and ate in crowded mess halls; guards in gun towers watched the perimeter of the camps and shot those who tried to escape. But most adapted as best they could to life behind barbed wire. Residents of the camps organized newspapers, fire departments and baseball leagues, planted gardens and sent their children to school. They constructed tracks for exercise, opened shops and staged dances. Organizations were formed to advocate for the rights of the Japanese Americans in t h e ca m p s a n d d e e p d i v i s i o n s s o m e t i m es arose between
Evacuees of Japanese ancestry waiting their turn for baggage inspection for contraband, upon arrival at this Assembly point. Photographer: Lange, Dorothea Turlock, California. 5/2/42
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Nisei Soldiers Be Brave
In 1944, the most decorated unit in U.S. military history was fighting fiercely on the European front in World War II. Many would be surprised to find out that their families back in the states were in an internment camp of all places. This is because the United States most decorated military unit was Japanese American. The 442nd Regiment was composed of Japanese American enlisted men with mostly Caucasian officers. They were a self-sufficient force, and fought in Italy, southern France, and Germany. The Japanese Americans who fought in the 442nd were ‘Nisei’, or second generation citizens, born in the U.S. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, they were initially categorized as enemy aliens. This meant they were not subject to the draft. This also lead to the internment of Japanese citizens while the war raged on.
LEFT S/Sgt. Tatsumi Iwate RIGHT A group of wounded Nisei veterans being hospitalized at Dibble General Hospital, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, California. Photo credit: The Regents of The University of California.
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“And even as I cocked my arm to throw, he fired and his rifle grenade smashed into my right elbow and exploded and all but tore my arm off. I looked at it, stunned and disbelieving. It dangled there by a few bloody shreds of tissue, my renade still clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore.” —Daniel Inouye, Nisei Soldier, Medal of Honor Recipient, Former U.S. Senate
Daniel Inouye was among the last recruits to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
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Origins The young “Nisei” Japanese men were eager to fight against the Axis Powers. Eventually, units consisting of only Japanese Americans were created in the Army. Because of the confusion that would likely arise in the Pacific theater, the Nisei units were to be employed only in the Mediterranean and Europe.
Volunteering and enlisting in the United States military was a chance for Japanese Americans to prove everyone wrong a n d to show their true loyalty to the United States. The 442nd Infantry Regiment was the largest N i s e i u n i t . F i g h t i n g i n I ta l y a n d s o u t h e r n France, the unit was known for its bravery and determination, as reflected by the unit motto, “Go for broke!” The first all Japanese A m e r i ca n m i l i ta r y u n i t was t h e 1 0 0 t h Battalion, and it was formed from the Japanese
Americans which were part of the Hawaiian National Guard. These Japanese Americans formed the 442nd Infantry R e g i m e n t . T h e r e g i m e n t c o n s i s t e d o f t h r e e ba t ta l i o n s , su p p o r t c o m p a n i es , t h e 232nd Combat Engineers, the 522nd Artillery Battalion, and Caucasian officers. The 442nd chose “Go For Broke” as it was a Hawaiian slang term from the gambling game ‘craps’. “Go For Broke” means to risk everything, give everything you have, or “all or nothing”.
Decorations The 442nd Regiment became known as “the Purple Heart battalion” because of the casualties it suffered. The original 4,000 Nisei who initially came in April 1943 had to be replaced nearly 3.5 times. In total, about 14,000 men served, ultimately earning 9,486 Purple Hearts (many earning double and triples), 4,000 Bronze Stars. 1,200 Oak Leaf Clusters added to the Bronze
RIGHT Private Richard Chinnen, arrives at water sack in humid Mississippi atmosphere. Photo credit: The Regents of the University of California. NEXT PAGE The 442nd Regimental Combat Team hiking up a muddy French road in the Chambois Sector, France, in late 1944.
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Star, 560 Silver Stars, 28 Oak Leaf Clusters to the Silver Star, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, 15 battlefield commissions and 23 of America’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. Its rescue of 211 members of a Texas unit pinned down by the Germans in southern France has also become a military legend known as “the rescue of the lost battalion.” After the post-war occupation duty in Italy, the soldiers of the 442nd—who had once been suspected of disloyalty because of their ancestry— came home as heroes in July of 1946. President Truman, in a ceremony on the Ellipse, personally pinned the 442nd’s seventh Presidential Unit Citation on the unit’s colors. The 442nd Regiment was deactivated in Honolulu in 1946, but reactivated in 1947 in the U.S. Army Reserve. In 1968, they were sent to refill the Strategic Reser ve during the Vietnam War, which carried on the honors and traditions of the unit.
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The Boat People Be Hopeful
The ‘Boat People of Vietnam’ seemed to encapsulate all the suffering Vietnam had suffered from 1965 to 1975. D es p i t e the end of the Vietnam War, tragedy for the people of Vietnam continued into 1978–79. The term ‘Boat People’ not only applies to the refugees who fled Vietnam but also to the people of Cambodia and Laos who did the same but tend to come under the same umbrella term. The term ‘Vietnamese Boat People’ tends to be associated with only those in the former South who fled the new Communist government. However, people in what was North Vietnam who had an ethnic Chinese background fled to Hong Kong at the same time fearing some form of retribution from the government in Hanoi.
TOP Women and children crouch in a muddy canal as they take cover from intense Viet Cong fire, January 1, 1966. BOTTOM Vietnamese refugee boat. Photo courtesy Talbott Bashall.
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Vietnam War In late 1978, Indo-China transformed into wholesale confrontation and war between the countries of Vietnam and Cambodia and China. In 1978, Vietnam attacked Cambodia. In February 1979, Vietnam attacked Chinese forces in the north. These two conflicts produced a huge number of refugees from Vietnam. It has been estimated that 65,000 Vietnamese were executed after the end of the war with 1 million being sent to prison/re-education camps where an estimated 165,000 died.
Fleeing From Their Home Many took the drastic decision to leave the c o u n t r y — an illegal act under the communis government. As an air flight out of Vietnam was out of the question, many took to makeshift boats to flee to start a new life elsewhere. Alternately, fishing boats were utilized. While perfectly safe for near-shore fishing, they were not built for the open waters. This was coupled with the fact that
they were usually chronically overcrowded, thus making any journey into the open seas potentially highly dangerous. No one can be sure how many people took the decision to flee, nor are there any definitive casualty figures. However, the number who attempted to flee has been put as high as 1.5 million. Estimates for deaths vary from 50,000 to 200,000 (Australian Immigration Ministry). The primary cause of death was drowning though many refugees were attacked by pirates and murdered or sold into slavery and prostitution. Some countries in the region, such as Malaya, turned the boat people away even if they did manage to land. Boats carrying the refugees were deliberately sunk offshore by those in them to stop the authorities towing them back out to sea. Many of these refugees ended up settling in the United States and Europe.
Hovering U.S. Army helicopters pour machine gun fire into a tree line to cover the advance of South Vietnamese ground troops in an attack on a Viet Cong camp. Vietnam in March of 1965.
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Asian American Studies Protesters Speak Up
Asian American Studies was born in the 1960s as a part of the Third World Movement on the West Coast that gave birth to African American Studies, Chicano/Latino Studies, and Na t i v e A m e r i ca n S tu d i es. On November 6, 1968 African American, Asian American, Chicano and Native American students at San Francisco State College and University of California, Berkeley organized campus coalitions known as the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF). TWLF led student s t r i k es d e m a n d e d t h e es tab l i s h m e n t o f T h i r d W o r l d C o l l e g es c o m p r i s e d of departments of Asian American, African American, Chicano and Native American Studies.
LEFT Police used surprising levels of violence. RIGHT TOP Richard Masato Aoki, an early member of the Black Panthers, takes part in a protest near the UC Berkeley campus in 1969. Photo: Lonnie Wilson, Oakland Tribune.
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Speaking Up S tu d e n ts , fa cu l t y a n d c o m m u n i t y a c t i v i s ts demanded equal access to public higher education, more senior faculty of color and a new curriculum that would embrace the history and culture of all people including ethnic minorities. Significance of these strikes were twofold: first, minority students were able to unite in solidarity against institutional racism and second, the strikes won the formation of Ethnic Studies programs at UC Berkeley and SF State.
Significance of these strikes were twofold: first, minority student were able to unite in solidarity against institutional racism and second, the strikes won the formation of Ethnic Studies programs. The concept “Third World� provided a c o m m o n bas i s o f u n i t y f o r t h e T W L F student activists. The term identified parallel
colonial and racial experiences of minorities throughout US history. Examples of common racial oppression included: genocide of the native Indians, enslavement of Africans, colonization of Chicanos in the Southwest, and the passage of Asian immigration exclusion. This past was linked with the history of Western colonization in the Third World countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The international movements for independence and self-determination in those locales were viewed as related to the demands of U.S. Third World minorities for political power.
Protests Strike tactics involved informational picketing, blocking of campus entrances, mass rallies and teach-ins. Popular support was often met with repression in the form of police arrests, teargas and campus disciplinary actions. Police mutual assistance pacts enabled the rapid formations of riot squads dispatched from throughout the SF Bay area. During the Fall and Spring semesters
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of 1968-9, hundreds of students were arrested d u r i n g t h e S F S ta t e s t r i k e , i n c l u d i n g m o r e than 450 on one sweep alone. Similarly, over 155 students were arrested at the UC Berkeley strike which lasted the entire Winter Quarter of 1969. In the last two weeks of the dispute, the UC campus witnessed the stationing of National Guard troops to maintain martial law. Establishment of ethnic studies programs has been one of the chief legacies of the strike. These programs have expanded nationally in over 250 universities, colleges and high schools. B o t h U C B e r k e l e y a n d S F S ta t e U n i v e rs i t y provide undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Ethnic Studies. Another important legacy of the strikes involved the establishment of closer working relationship between students and the community that surrounded them.
A large numbers of Asian American students became involved in communitybased organizing efforts within the Asian American movement.
The International Hotel anti-eviction movement and the establishment of community centers in San F ra n c i s c o C h i n a t o w n - M a n i l a t o w n a n d Japantown were an outgrowth of this legacy.
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About the Author & Illustrator As h l e y N g i s a g ra p h i c d es i g n e r f r o m Sa n F ra n c i s c o . She was born in San Francisco and raised in Novato, a small suburban town just half an hour north of the city. She is 5th generation Chinese American and was always one of the few Asian Americans in her hometown. This has had a significant impact in her life and in her design, which inspired her to write and illustrate Po Po Says. Her character inspiration for Po Po and Ella were developed based on her memories of her own Po Po who loved to knit her clothes when she was young. Ashley’s Po Po was a huge inspiration in her life and she wanted to commemorate the memory of her in her book.
TOP RIGHT Portrait of author and illustrator Ashley Ng. BOTTOM LEFT 3 year old Ashley Ng and her Po Po.
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Resources BOOKS
WEBSITES
Novas, Himlilce, Lan Cao, and Rosemary. Silva Asian American History. 4th ed. New York:Penguin Group, 2004.
Harvard University Library Open Collections Program. “Immigration, Railroads, and the West”. <http://www.ocp.hul.harvard.edu>.
Cargill, Mary Terrell and Jade Quang Huyng. Voices of Vietnamese Boat People. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2000.
FoundSF. “S.F. State Strike 1968–69 Chronology.” <http://beta.shapingsf-wiki.org>.
Takaki, Ronald. Strangers From a Different Shore. Canada: Little, Brown & Company, 1989. Gordon, Linda and Gary Y. Okihiro. Impounded Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008. Thornton, Jeremy. The Gold Rush Chinese Immgrants Come to America (1848-1882). New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2004.
University of California Calisphere. <http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu>. Smithsonian Institution. “American Heroes.” <http://www.sites.si.edu>. Hearn, Lafcadio. Lafcadio Hearn’s America: Ethnographic Sketches and Editorials. Google Books. KQED. “Pacific Link.” The KQED Asian Education Initiative. <http://www.kqed.org>.
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Text copyright Š 2014 by Ashley Ng Cover and interior illustrations copyright Š 2014 by Ashley Ng All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission. Typefaces: Josefin Sans, Josefin Slab Printed in the United States of America May 2014 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 FIRST EDITION
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