Topaz Moon
Chiura Obata's Art of the Internment

Chiura Obata, Professor of Art at the University of California, Berkeley, was one of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans forcefully relocated in 1942 from their homes and communities to the stark barracks of internment camps. As an artist faithfully recording the world around him, Obata gave us a view into the camps that was at once honest in the details of austerity and hardship, and strikingly lyrical in its portrayal of hope and beauty even in incarceration.

Topaz Moon presents more than 100 of Obata's sketches, sumi paintings, and watercolors from the internment period. Lovingly collected and edited by his granddaughter, Kimi Kodani Hill, and movingly augmented by letters and interviews, Obata's work gives testament to his artistic genius and a spirit undefeated by adversity.

Tule Lake Revisited
A Brief History and Guide to the Tule Lake Internment Camp Site

Many have returned to the site of the former incarceration center at Tule Lake only to be bewildered. How could it be that a place so huge, with such a major impact on so many lives, has vanished? What is left of that barbed wire encircled, tar-paper barrack community where 18,000 people lived?

This book is intended to direct visitors to the remains of the site and to foster an understanding of the forces that resulted in the wartime incarceration.

Conscience and the Constitution

In World War II, a handful of young Americans refused to be drafted from an American concentration camp. They were ready to fight for their country, but not before the government restored their rights as U.S. citizens and released their families from camp. It was the largest organized resistance to the incarceration, leading to the largest trial for draft resistance in U.S. history. The dissidents served two years in prison, and for the next 50 were written out of history... until now. This powerful film has moved audiences nationwide and changed the way we look at this period of American history. With the voices of George Takei ("Star Trek") and Mako ("The Sand Pebbles").

Rabbit in the Moon

Rabbit in the Moon is a documentary/memoir about the lingering effects of the World War II internment of the Japanese American community. It is also the story of two sisters, both former internees, filmmaker Emiko Omori and writer Chizuko Omori, who revisited the absence of this vital history in their lives while searching for he memory of their mother. Visually stunning and emotionally compelling, Rabbit in the Moon examines issue that ultimately created deep rifts within the community, reveals the racist subtext of the loyalty questionnaire and exposes the absurdity of the military draft within the camps. These testimonies are linked by the filmmakers' own experiences in the camps and placed in a larger historical context by the voice of the director, Emiko Omori.

Keep it Going Pass it On
Poetry inspired by the Manzanar Pilgrimage

Keep it Going...Pass it On is a compilation of poetry written for and about the Manzanar camps, which detained more than 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. These words are collected with one thought in mind—to use the remembrances of those who survived the injustices of the camp expericence to remind present and future generations to keep it going and pass it on...