Teacher’s Guide To “Rabbit In the Moon”

This guide is intended to help teachers follow the film, “Rabbit In the Moon” and to facilitate its use in classroom instruction. Some will be familiar with the subject, the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and others will know very little about it. A general background will be provided, with website addresses for broader material and information.

The “Rabbit In the Moon” project follows a particular format that is outlined in Part 4, the lesson plan. Some general guidelines and themes are then suggested in helping students grasp the more general concepts within the film. I would like teachers to develop their own plans in accordance with the interests and needs of their classes. The film is about a particular piece of relatively recent history, but the implications of this history for the nation are the most important area for teachers and students to consider.

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Part 1.

A quick overview. Some background material for context. A chronology of events.

Part 2.

The film itself. The story of one family’s experience told by 2 sisters within the larger picture of the internment.

Part 3.

Relations to California history. Relations to national history.

Part 4.

Lesson plan.

Part 5.

Book lists, Resources, Websites.

Part 6.

Appendix.

Map of 15 assembly centers, 10 relocation centers (concentration camps), 4 Justice Department internment camps, 2 Citizen isolation camps.

Photos from the War Relocation Authority arranged chronologically, with the official captions. Website Densho Project, “For Teachers”, War Relocation Authority photographs of Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement (7000 photos housed at University of California, Berkeley. Open the link “Container List”)

Part 1.

A. A Quick Overview.

Japanese immigrants came to the United States between the late 19^th century and 1924 at which time all immigration was stopped by court decree. By 1940, there were 158,000 persons of Japanese descent in Hawaii and 127,000 in mainland U.S, most along the West Coast. Although barred from citizenship, by 1940, the immigrants had started families, businesses, established roots in communities, many even prospering in agriculture, fisheries, and small business, making major contributions and innovations in farming, seafood production, and floriculture. In spite of discriminatory laws and some hostility from the outer white world, their communities were thriving, propelled by a strong work ethic. Following the path of most immigrant groups, the next generation was becoming Americanized through education and contact with the outer society. There was an attempt to maintain some ties with Japan and some of the children were sent back to be educated in Japan, but by and large, most were well established in the U.S.

The breakout of war between Japan and the United States on December 7, 1941 was a time of turmoil and hardship for these people. At this point, 70% were citizens of the U.S. by birth, with a 30% group of aging alien parents who had been residing here for over 17 years. FBI sweeps picked up 10% alien Japanese men in the first months and put them in Department of Justice internment camps, depriving the communities of leaders. As war hysteria mounted, the government, citing military necessity, moved to round up roughly 120,000 residents on the West Coast, first housing them in temporary assembly centers and then moving them to 10 incarceration camps. Some were allowed out, but most inmates were kept in these camps until the end of 1944. Some volunteered for the army and others were drafted and served in both Pacific and European campaigns, serving with great distinction. Others challenged the incarceration through the courts and through refusing to be drafted, and some, disillusioned and angry, renounced their citizenship and went to Japan.

Many Japanese Americans and their alien parents went from the camps to parts east of the West Coast during and after the war, though eventually, most of the came back to the West Coast when allowed. Reestablishing their lives was hard and the communities never fully regained their prewar vigor. After many years of silence, a movement asking for an apology and redress from the government was mounted in the 1970s and 80s. This effort was rewarded by the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The government formally apologized and awarded a token redress of $20,000 for each living camp survivor. The incarceration of the Japanese residents during World War II is now regarded as based on racism, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership with a total disregard for the laws and constitution of this country.

B. Chronology

1890-1924. The time period when most of the Japanese arrived from Japan to Hawaii and the West Coast. Chinese immigration was prohibited in 1882. In Hawaii, the Japanese became workers on the sugar plantations. Those who came to the mainland found a variety of jobs. Many worked in agriculture and began farming.

1907. A “gentleman’s agreement” was reached between the US government and Japan to restrict the number of Japanese males into the country. However, a window was left open through which thousands of Japanese women came to the US to marry men through arranged marriages, often by an exchange of pictures. The women were called “picture brides”. Forming families gave the Japanese greater incentive to settle and put down roots.

1920. In California a new Alien Land Law was passed, banning all purchases of land and restricting the leasing of land to no longer than three years.

1922. A lawsuit that had been moving through the courts for 10 years, a test case supported by the Japanese community for naturalization, the Ozawa case, was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Justices ruled that no non-white person would be allowed to become a citizen of the U.S.

1924. The loophole allowing women and family members to immigrate when all immigration was banned, fixing the age structure of the population. The immigrant generation were called Issei, the US born second generation, Nisei. Another category is called the Kibei, citizen children sent to Japan for their schooling. Because Japan was focusing on a military buildup, many Kibei boys were given cadet training or the equivalent of ROTC.

California led the way in restrictive legislation, including anti-miscegenation laws and the alien land laws. The other western states followed suit, but were not as repressive as California. Japanese learned to get around the restrictions. For instance, land was purchased in the name of minor children who were citizens by birth, or in the names of white friends or by forming corporations. Close-knit communities were formed as the immigrants clustered for safety, for sharing a common cultural and social heritage, and for mutual assistance. One special feature was the high rate of literacy in their native language, Japanese, thus giving rise to numerous publications keeping them informed and spreading news.

1940. War clouds gathered between the U.S. and Japan. Secretary of Navy Frank Knox to President Roosevelt included a recommendation to “prepare plans for concentration camps” in order to impress the Japanese government of the seriousness of U.S. military preparedness.

1941. Several reports including the Munson Report and the Ringle Report by the Office of Naval Intelligence report were submitted to the government stating that the Japanese living on the West Coast were no problem. Japan’s attack on the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii instigated an immediate sweep by the FBI of aliens considered potentially dangerous. A curfew, with mobility restricted to 5 miles from home, was imposed. Homes were searched for weapons and all material considered contraband was confiscated.

1942. By February, 2,192 resident aliens were picked up in the US, 879 in Hawaii, 42 in Alaska. These men comprised the older leadership in the community and left many families without a breadwinner. They were held in Department of Justice internment camps in the interior of the country, most spending the entire war period in these enemy alien internment camps. On February 19, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 designating certain areas on the West Coast military zones where the Army could exclude any and all persons considered dangerous to the national defense. The rationale of “military necessity” was used to instigate the program of incarceration of all persons of Japanese descent on the West Coast.

The Wartime Civil Control Administration was established by the Army to initially run the program of exclusion & detention. This military organization was replaced by the War Relocation Authority, a civilian agency created to administer the program. In March, the first camp, Manzanar, was opened. By April, most were moved into temporary assembly centers in fairgrounds and race tracks. All were put into 10 “relocation centers” by September. 4 lawsuits were started testing the legality and constitutionality of the program: Hirabayashi, Yasui, Korematsu, and Endo. These cases wind their way slowly through the court system, and in 1944, Hirabayashi, Yasui and Korematsu lost their cases in the Supreme Court. The incarceration was declared constitutional.

In November, a strike was called at Poston, Arizona Relocation Center over the arrest of persons thought to be involved in the beating of a suspected informer. Japanese American Citizens League president, Saburo Kido, was also severely beaten. The strike was resolved without further incident.

At Manzanar in December, a similar situation resulted in the killings of 2 young men and the wounding of 8 by military guards. Several citizen isolation camps were established to hold assorted inmates considered “troublemakers”. These individuals were held for varying lengths of time and eventually returned to the camps.

1943. Army decided to form an all volunteer segregated unit of Japanese
Americans. February. Recruiting teams were sent to the camps with a registration questionnaire to be filled out by all draft age males. 805 men are accepted as volunteers for the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team.

The WRA renamed the questionnaire as a leave clearance form that was given to all inmates over age of 17. This form became known as the loyalty questionnaire because it was used to divide the inmates in the categories of “loyal” and “disloyal”. A segregation program was instituted in which camp Tule Lake in northern California became the center for all considered disloyal or unwanted. By October, the transfers were completed and Tule Lake’s population is swelled to 18,000. Those who wished to leave Tule Lake are moved to the other centers. A trickle were allowed to go out of the camps on temporary farm work leaves and to educational institutions which would accept them.

1944. Selective Service was reinstated. 315 men decide to challenge government’s policy of drafting men out of concentration camps into the Army. 263 were charged with draft evasion, convicted and sentenced to jail. 23,000 men from the camps and Hawaii served with distinction for service in Europe and the Pacific War. In December, the Endo case was heard in the Supreme Court which ruled that anyone who is not being held for criminal reasons was free to go wherever they chose. This allowed the camp inmates to return to the West Coast.

1946. Last internees left camp at Tule Lake, California, and 6,000 were shipped to Japan. In June, the War Relocation Authority was terminated.

1948. In Oyama vs. California, the alien land laws were ruled unconstitutional.

1952. Japanese aliens were allowed to apply for naturalization. The anti-miscegenation law in California was repealed.

1970. A movement calling for an acknowledgement from the government admitting wrongdoing in the case of the internment of Japanese Americans and compensation for the inmates gathers steam. The movement takes several forms: 1) reopening the Supreme Court Cases; 2) a class action suit on behalf of all internees based on specific violations of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution; 3) bills in Congress asking for an apology and compensation.

1980. Congress passed legislation which set up a

commission called the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to hold hearings on the internment experience. The Commission issued a report in 1982 saying that internment was not justified by military necessity, but “the broad historical causes…were race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership”.

1988. the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was signed into law apologizing for the government’s wartime actions and granting redress of $20,000 per still living internee at the time of the signing. The class action suit was dropped by the Supreme Court in 1987. The cases of Hirabayashi, Korematsu and Yasui were all vacated in federal courts.

Part 2.

The Film, “Rabbit In The Moon”

“Rabbit In the Moon” tells of one family who went through the “evacuation” and incarceration of Japanese residents during World War II. It is a family of 5: an Issei father, a Kibei mother, and their 3 Nisei daughters. The filmmakers are 2 of the daughters, Chizu and Emiko.

The Omori family was living in Oceanside, California, a small town 60 miles south of Los Angeles, on a farm where they grew strawberries and other truck crops. Due to the California law which restricted the lease of land to a maximum of 3 years, this was again a new farm for the Omoris. They were part of a cooperative of 16 farmers called the Oceanside Farmers Cooperative Association that had been in existence for a few years. By leasing in the name of the older citizen children, the group circumvented the alien land laws.

The group had just built a community center which was used for gatherings and celebrations and where their children went to Japanese classes an hour every day after the regular American school. There was an attempt to imbue their rapidly assimilating children with some of the old world cultural values and language.

Immediately after Pearl Harbor, the Army appropriated the schoolhouse/ community center and used it to register all of the Japanese Americans in the region and to give instructions on policies. All cameras, radios and other equipment considered contraband had to be turned in. Farmers were told to continue planting and readying their farms for production. Thus, when the orders came to pack up and leave, the family was put in the position of selling its crops to strangers and working as laborers on their own farms harvesting strawberries.

In this town, no hostility was directed toward these residents. Indeed, many white persons came to help them. The Omori family was helped by a kindly grocer who stored what goods were left after hasty sales of farm equipment, car, trucks and household goods, everything that couldn’t be carried in 2 suitcases. Attempts were made to move to the Midwest, perhaps Minnesota, where the entire cooperative could continue farming. All efforts were rebuffed.

On May 14, a few days after Chizu’s 12^th birthday, the first contingent of San Diego County Japanese Americans were put on trains and were sent directly to Poston, Arizona, a still incomplete “relocation center”. After a journey of 3 days, they arrived at the desert site. Assigned to an “apartment”, which consisted of a bare room in a barrack, block 22, barrack 10, compartment C became their address, 22-10-C, until October, 1945.

As shown in the film, the Omori family went through the various ups and downs that were the lot of all camp inmates. What had been a good American farm family was torn by dissent. Faced with a crisis of identity and having to make a choice between their country of origin and the United States which had treated them like enemies, the Omori parents decided that they preferred to rebuild their lives in Japan. Chizu, the citizen daughter, had no doubts about her place. She was an American, not a Japanese. These conflicts were present in many families, though the majority of Issei decided to throw in their lot with America with their citizen children. By 1945, 70,000 still remained in the camps.

Because Mr. & Mrs. Omori had made the decision to repatriate, the Omori family was not allowed to leave Poston when the December 1944 Supreme Court ruling allowed the camp inmates to return to the coastal areas. The family did not go to Japan at war’s end but went back to California in October of 1945. They eventually settled in Vista, California, where some members of the family still reside.

Part 3.

Place in California History and United States History

California has a long anti-Asian history that is related to the treatment of other minority groups. The persecution of Native Americans during the westward expansion and the rough treatment of Mexicans and Mexican Americans during border disputes were typical expressions of a racist nature. It was only during a severe labor shortage that Chinese were brought in to work on building the railroads and work in the mines. White laborers, however, perceived them as threats to their jobs and in 1882, all Chinese immigration was banned.

In the late 1900s, Japanese and Philippine workers were brought to the Hawaiian Islands to work on the sugar plantations, and Japanese immigrants began coming to the mainland where they filled the labor vacuum left by the ban on the Chinese. All Asian immigrants became a visible target for politicians who regularly whipped up anti-Asian feelings during their political campaigns and newspapers regularly used the “yellow peril” image to frighten the public and a series of anti-Asian laws were passed.

In spite of the restrictions, many Japanese developed a toehold in the economy and were becoming significant players in the agricultural economies of the coastal states.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked and war was declared against Japan in 1941, California politicians and most of the media again alarmed the public with racist rhetoric and pressed for the expulsion of all Japanese residents, aliens and citizens alike. Agricultural interests were also eager to rid the state of the Japanese, and very few spoke up to oppose the internment.

When camp inmates began to return to the coastal areas in 1945, many were harassed and met with hostility, even violence. However, over time, they struggled to rebuild their lives and many went back into agriculture. Today, Japanese Americans have become well integrated into the fabric of American society, but an entire generation, the Issei, lost their life’s work because of the incarceration.

In U.S. history, relations between Japan and the US were never smooth, and that rockiness affected the lives of Japanese immigrants. Japan was sensitive about its image and did not want to be seen as a nation of greatly lower status. Observers from Japan saw how the Chinese were looked upon in America as inferior, so Japan screened those who came to the US to sift out any who might appear like the Chinese coolies. Those who came were expected to be representatives of Japan and to live and behave in a manner that brought no shame. But generally, all Asians were regarded as inassimilable.

From fairly early times, Japanese populations in the US and Hawaii were watched by intelligence agencies because of the possibilities of war with Japan. Their small numbers and their visibility made this relatively simple. President Franklin Roosevelt was not disposed to looking favorably on Japan and the Japanese invasion of China and Manchuria solidified anti-Japanese feelings in the government.

China became an object of sympathy as Japanese armies penetrated and advanced. Atrocities and cruelties perpetrated by those armies became part of a propaganda barrage in forming public opinion. Japan’s alliance with Hitler Germany also identified her as a menace on the world stage.

By the time of Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, Americans were primed to regard anything Japanese as anathema. The “sneaky” image was transferred to anyone of Japanese descent living in the U.S. and it was an easy step to justify spending the millions of dollars and hours of manpower that it took to build the camps, transport the people and keep them in captivity for years.

During the post war period, great strides were made in the arena of civil rights for all minority groups in the U.S. and for Japanese Americans. Among the landmarks was legislation repealing the Alien Land Laws, the anti-miscegenation laws, and opening naturalization to Issei.

Part 4.

Lesson plan

a. Have a discussion with students about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Find out what they know and what they think about it.

b. Show the film, “Rabbit In the Moon” to the class.

Discuss the film with the class.

c. Ask students to write down questions and

comments. Send the questions to me (via fax

or email) in advance.

d. I then come to the class to hold a discussion

with the students incorporating the questions and comments that were sent to me plus any others that they ask.

e. Teachers and students give their

evaluation of the film and discussion.

f. The teacher’s guide will be revised to

incorporate their suggestions.

g. Teachers can help students with projects using

information and ideas suggested by the film and on can draw on material found on websites.

There are many lesson plans to be found on websites. Check through the website list in Part 5. Densho Project is coming out this spring with a comprehensive program for teachers on the subject of internment. Bay Area Mosaic, part of KQED’s educational component, contains specific lesson plans structured for grade school and high school.

1. One way to organize the teaching of this material is around particular themes.

a. What does it mean to be an American?

b. How is America different from many other countries?

c. What are the elements in our country that keep different groups from fighting and killing each other as they are doing in many other countries in the world?

d. What is the meaning of loyalty?

e. How is our political structure designed to minimize friction between groups?

f. Find instances where groups have clashed and how the conflicts were resolved or not.

g. All of us come from differing backgrounds. How are we different? How are we alike? What keeps us together, what draws us apart?

h. What is your family background and does your family have any stories about problems that it had because of that background?

2. In thinking about the film, how do you suppose such a thing could have happened at that time?

a. What made the Japanese Americans

different?

b. How was it made easy for this one group to be singled out and targeted as under suspicion?

c. How do these same elements operate today to make some groups more visible and subject to stereotyping? Where do with get these images?

3. The use of language. Think about the various names and phrases used to describe the events and the structures of the internment.

a. What are they called in the official literature?

b. How did various leaders refer to the program and its components?

c. There is also a pattern of evasion here. Notice how euphemisms are used, and how references to the camps are often couched in such a way to evade their true nature. How do these evasions make it easy to ignore laws?

4. The use of media, such as films and photos. There are clips from government films in Rabbit. How do these obscure what was really happening?

a. In looking at photos put out by the War Relocation Authority (check website which will access 7000 photos) what kind of images are featured? What are the messages being presented by these photos?

b. Examine the uses of government propaganda to put a benign facade on the lives of the inmates.

Part 5.

Booklists, Resources, Websites

Books For middle school students

Chin, Steven, When Justice Failed: The Fred Korematsu Story. Steck-Vaughn Co., National Education Corp, 1993

Davis, Daniel S., Behind Barbed Wire: The Imprisonment of Japanese Americans During World War II. E.P. Dutton, 1982

Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki & James D. Houston, Farewell To Manzanar. Bantam Books, 1981

Levine, Ellen, A Fence Away From Freedom. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995

Mochizuki, Ken, Baseball Saved Us. Lee & Low Books, 1995

Uchida, Yoshiko, A Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family. University of Washington Press, 1995

Yancey, Diane, Life In a Japanese Internment Camp (series: The Way People Live). Lucent Books, 1998

The best source for books is the Asian American Curriculum Project. Check out their website.

Other Reference Books

Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Personal Justice Denied. Washington D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982. Reprinted 1999, University of Washington Press

Daniels, Roger, The Decision to Relocate the Japanese Americans. New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1975

Daniels, Roger, Concentration Camps USA: Japanese Americans and World War II. New York: Hold, Rinehart and Winston, 1970

Daniels, Roger, Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States Since 1850. University of Washington Press, 1988

DeWitt, Lieutenant General J.L., Final Report: Japanese Evacuation From the West Coast, 1942. Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office, 1943

Drinnon, Richard, Keeper of Concentration Camps: Dillon S. Myer and American Racism. University of California Press, 1987

Grodzins, Morton, Americans Betrayed: Politics and the Japanese Evacuation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949

Guterson, David, Snow Falling On Cedars. Random House, 1999

Inada, Lawson Fusao, Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience. Heyday Books, California Historical Society, 2000

Irons, Peter, Justice At War. New York: Oxford University Press1983.

Leighton, Alexander H., The Governing of Men: General Principles and Recommendations Based on Experiences at a Japanese Relocation Camp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945.

Muller, Eric, Free To Die For Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II. University of Chicago Press, 2001

Myer, Dillon S., Uprooted Americans: The Japanese Americans and the War Relocation Authority During World War II. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970

Okada, John, No-No Boy. University of Washington Press, 1997

Robinson, Greg, By Order of the President: FDR and Japanese American Internment. Harvard University Press, 2001

tenBroek, Jacobus, Edward N. Barnhart, and Floyd W. Matson, Prejudice, War, and the Constitution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1954

Thomas, Dorothy Swaine, and Richard S. Nishimoto, The Spoilage. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1946

Weglyn, Michi,Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps. University of Washington Press, 1998

Resources

Asian American Curriculum Projects, Inc.

PO Box 1587

San Mateo, CA 94401

415-343-9408

National Japanese American Historical Society

1855 Folsom St., Rm. 161

San Francisco, CA 94103

Japanese American National Museum

369 East First St.

Los Angeles, CA 90012

213-625-0414

Japanese American Citizens League

1765 Sutter St.

San Francisco, CA 94115

415-921-5225