Category: World War Ii

The Boy Who Looked Like the Enemy

3/6/2023

Andrea Warren
Giving Voice to Children in History

  Norman Mineta was ten when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. He was a carefree fourth grader in San Jose, California, who loved baseball, hot dogs, and Cub Scouts. But after the attack, school friends turned on him, calling him the enemy and yelling at him, “Dirty Jap! You bombed Pearl Harbor!”
          “I looked like the enemy, so they assumed I was,” said Norm, whose parents had immigrated from Japan. “I burned with shame.”
          The FBI arrested Japanese American leaders, imposed a curfew, and restricted travel. People’s businesses were padlocked and their homes searched. “When we learned about the internment camps, it was very frightening,” Norm said.
          He and his parents, his older brother, and two of his three older sisters were taken by train to a camp near Heart Mountain, Wyoming, Heart Mountain housed 10,000 internees who lived behind barbed wire in 500 barracks. Their rooms had a single light bulb. No privacy, no closet, no running water.
          The Mineta family endured these hardships with grace and dignity. Norm found solace in playing baseball and doing well in school. Late in 1944 the family was sent by the government to Chicago so Norm’s father could teach Japanese to American army officers. They lived in a regular house, but were not free to go home.
          That finally happened when the war ended in 1945. They had been gone three long years. Gradually they resumed their former lives. After high school and college, Norm served in the army. He married, fathered two sons, and joined the family insurance business.
          Then he was elected mayor of San Jose and later served twenty years in the House of Representatives. While in congress, he and other congressional members sponsored a bill requiring the government to give financial restitution to each living internee. More important, each would receive a letter of apology from the President of the United States.
          After long and arduous work, the bill passed, becoming the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Japanese Americans had been exonerated. Only then could healing begin for one of the most egregious civil rights violations in American history.
          Norm went on the serve in the cabinets of two presidents. Today this distinguished statesman works actively to tell the story of the interment and to ensure the civil rights of all Americans.

Norm (in front) with his brother, sister, and parents in 1934 in front of their home in San Jose, California

Norm being sworn into congress. Courtesy of Norman Mineta

Norm at age 10 just before Pearl Harbor was bombed.

Norm as he is today at the age of 88.

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Two Brothers, Four Hands

1/12/2022

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Jan Greenberg
Cheerleader for the Arts

Have you ever tried to learn to do something new, such as riding a two-wheeler bike? You practice for weeks. Then one day the wheels start turning, the bike stays upright with you on it and off you go whizzing down the street.

Two Brothers Four Hands tells the story of an artist named Alberto Giacometti (born 1901), and his younger brother Diego (1902) and their struggles to become artists. They grow up in a small Swiss village surrounded by mountains. Alberto likes to read or paint in his father's art studio; Diego spends his days roaming the mountains and observing the wildlife.

But despite their differences, the brothers form a deep bond. When they grow up, Diego moves to Paris to help Alberto with his artwork. Alberto labors tirelessly for years trying to express in painting and sculpture the way he sees the world, the way he feels in his heart. He sits at his easel day after day painting a portrait of his younger brother Diego only to destroy it and start again. When he makes sculpture, using plaster to model his brother’s face, he eventually whittles the plaster down to nothing. Patient Diego believes in his brother’s talent but even he gets frustrated.

During World War II, as most of Europe battles the German army, Alberto goes to Switzerland to be near their mother. Diego stays in Paris to guard Alberto’s studio. Diego learns to cast plaster molds into bronze and to paint the surfaces with colors of silver, green and gold. After the war, Alberto returns to Paris. Finally back in his familiar studio, he begins to make tall spindly sculptures that capture the spirit of the survivors of war-torn Europe. At the same time Diego begins to craft furniture adorned with the creatures he observed as a child - deer, foxes, turtles, and more. But he's so busy helping Alberto, who is now in great demand for exhibits in museums and galleries that he has to give up on his own work.. “Alberto is the artist. I am merely a craftsman,” Diego often says.

After his brother dies, Diego starts handcrafting furniture and he, too, becomes a great success. His tables, chairs, and lamps are so magical that people forget their function and think of them as sculpture.

Alberto’s friend the playwright Samuel Beckett once wrote, “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Like learning to ride a bike, after trying and failing again, one day you just might get it right.

Artist Hadley Hooper portrayed the differences between the two brothers in this illustration from the book. Alberto is on the left an Diego is on the right.

Walking Man by Alberto Giacometti

Ostrich by Diego Giacometti

The inspiring true story of the Giacometti brothers, one an artist, the other a daredevil, both devoted to their craft . . . but even more devoted to each other.
You can read Vicki Cobb's review here.

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The Ship Disguised as an Island

3/18/2020

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Jan Adkins
The Explainer General

The United States entered World War II after December 7, 1941, when Japanese carrier-based aircraft destroyed our warships and airfields at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At the same time, they attacked United States, British, Dutch and Australian targets all over the western Pacific Ocean with overwhelming force.

The British battleship Prince of Wales and the heavy cruiser Repulse were destroyed three days later. A ragtag fleet of smaller Allied warships was crushed at the Battle of the Java Sea on February 27, 1942. Scattered and discouraged, remaining Allied ships retreated south to Australia.

The Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen (CRANE son) was a little boat: 184 feet long, 25 feet wide (56m X 7.5m). She mounted a small cannon and a few machine guns, and she was slow—not a match for any Japanese warship or airplane. Her captain, Commander Anthonie van Miert, called “all hands” for a meeting. Rather than scuttle the boat and surrender, he meant to escape. The chances were slim. He wanted only a crew of volunteers and allowed most of the crew to leave.

Two other minesweepers set out to escape before him as his volunteers covered the Crijnssen with camouflage netting. He caught up with them next morning but they weren’t camouflaged, and van Miert steamed on to another anchorage. A wise choice: both minesweepers were spotted by Japanese aircraft. Neither survived.

Van Miert couldn’t be caught in the open! His crew repainted the hull to look like shore rocks. Before dawn each morning they pushed up against a jungle island to cut fresh tree branches and foliage. They tied the greenery to the masts and stuck it into the netting. They sat through the day disguised as an innocent island. When night came the little vessel steamed south. She rushed through dangerous, narrow straits then slowed down to save fuel. No lights, all her portholes covered, her lookouts sharp and worried. Toward morning, they found a new island and rigged a new disguise.
For eight days the lonely little ship steamed at night and became an island during the day. On March 15, 1942, she docked in Geraldton, Australia. The Crijnssen escaped and survived World War II.

Commander van Miert and nine crew members received the Dutch Navy’s Cross of Merit for courage, and for imagination. Today you can visit the tough little island . . . er, ship, at the naval museum in Dan Helder, Netherlands.

The Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen (CRANE son) was a little boat: 184 feet long, 25 feet wide (56m X 7.5m). This is what she looked like before she became an island.

This is how she looked when disguised as an island. Pretty cool

Adkins' latest book is about the first drive in an automobile. The wife of the inventor took her kids to see their grandparents. Learn more about it here.

The author/illustrator is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.

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Why Were Japanese Americans Imprisoned During World War II?

2/26/2020

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Andrea Warren
Giving Voice to Children in History

          After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the lives of Japanese Americans instantly changed.
          As the US declared war on Japan, public scrutiny focused on the 120,000 Japanese Americans living along the Pacific Ocean. Would they help Japan if it attempted an invasion of the coast? A hateful, racist anti-Japanese American campaign swept the nation, and the government decided that for “public safety” Japanese Americans must be isolated in “internment” camps.
          With little warning, the roundups began. They were forced to sell their homes and possessions for whatever they could get and to give away their pets. They were allowed just two suitcases each as they boarded trains and buses to over-crowded assembly centers, where they waited for months in primitive conditions until the ten permanent camps were ready.
          Those camps were in isolated, inhospitable locations where the internees lived behind barbed wire, guarded by armed soldiers. Each family was assigned one room in a flimsy wooden barrack furnished only with iron cots. Everyone waited in long lines to use the restrooms and to eat. The children attended schools that were started in the camps. But jobs were scarce and adults had little to do.
          While they could have sunk into despair, nearly all Japanese Americans wanted America to win the war, and if their confinement helped the war effort, they decided to cooperate and make the best of it. To stay busy they organized scout troops and baseball teams. They hosted talent contests, movie nights, dances, festivals, and celebrations. They started newspapers, libraries, poetry clubs, choirs, bands and orchestras. They took up woodworking and sewing and planted Victory Gardens. In some camps internees were allowed to grow crops to supplement their government surplus food.
          Each morning they saluted the flag and said the Pledge of Allegiance. Many participated in Red Cross blood drives and knitted socks and scarves to send to soldiers. The young men from the camps who served in the war distinguished themselves with their bravery and helped ensure an Allied victory.
          After the war, Japanese Americans began the difficult task of rebuilding their lives. Many had lost all their belongings and could not find jobs. Worst of all was the shame they felt over their country’s distrust of them. But they had proved their loyalty. And in spite of this terrible injustice, they raised their children to be good Americans.

Andrea Warren is the author of nine books of nonfiction for young readers and young adult readers. Each centers on young people who have faced grave challenges in difficult periods of history. Her latest, Enemy Child: The Story of Norman Mineta, a Boy Imprisoned in a Japanese American Internment Camp During World War II, published by Holiday House, received starred reviews in School Library Journal and The Horn Book. It was selected as a 2019 Best Book by School Library Journal and is the recipient of the Bank Street College best nonfiction award. It has also has been honored by the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Warren is a previous winner of the Horn Book Award and the Sibert Honor Award. You can read Vicki Cobb's review here.

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The Boy Who Looked Like the Enemy

Two Brothers, Four Hands

The Ship Disguised as an Island

Why Were Japanese Americans Imprisoned During World War II?

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