May 2000: Asia and the South Pacific

Did you know that May is National Asian/Pacific Islander Month? Check out these interdisciplinary teaching ideas and online resources developed each month around a specific theme.

Teaching Ideas

Japanese-Americans During World War II

When the war against Japan began, many Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were ordered to relocate to camps far away from the coastal regions. (See the PBS Web site "Children of the Camps" at http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/) The reasoning given for this was to prevent any spies from aiding the Japanese war effort. Have students research the impact this had on Japanese-Americans. Also have students discuss whether or not this could happen in the United States today. What constitutional protections exist to prevent this from happening? Is this enough? You may want to point out that these constitutional protections were removed to intern the Japanese in America.

Another group of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War was the all-Japanese 100th Infantry Battalion http://www.sfmuseum.org/war/issei.html. This group of soldiers fought on the European front despite the challenges that their families and friends were facing at home. Have students imagine that they are one of these soldiers writing to their family in an internment camp. What would you tell your family about the events going on in Europe? How would you keep your family's spirits up even though they were locked in a guarded camp? How would you explain your decision to fight despite the fact that the American government has locked up your family? Have students write a series of four letters, two letters to a spouse and one letter each to a son and daughter. Students may also write to an older generation, too old to fight.

Asian American Authors

Read students the poem, "I Ask My Mother to Sing," by Asian American poet Li-Young Lee (about this poet: http://www.wwnorton.com/naal/explore/lee.htm), taken from his collection, The Rose. Ask students to go home and ask one of their parents or an older person significant to them to tell a story about that individual's years growing up.

Have students write the story offered on one page; then, students are to write a poem about listening to their parent's or significant individual's story on another page. For the poem, students will want to include details about the story and about how the story was told to them. Indicate to students to reflect on how the individual reacted when asked to tell a personal history story. Did the individual have specific mannerisms while telling the story? What about the story-telling let you know the importance of the story?

Have students revise and polish both pieces. Have students mount the final manuscripts of the story and poem side by side on a bulletin board or as facing pages in a journal.

Conclude activity with readings of Li-Young Lee's poems, "Story" and "The Gift": see http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/lee.html.

Extender Activity to Li-Young Lee Poetry Writing:
Have students listen to excerpts from MAXINE HONG KINGSTON: TALKING STORY, a CD-ROM that allows students to hear this storyteller talk about her memories, life, and influences. See http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/TalkingStory.html. A written excerpt from WOMAN WARRIOR is available at http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/MaxineHongKingston.html.

For additional perspectives on the experience of being an Asian-American, visit My America (or, Honk If You Love Buddha) at http://www.pbs.org/myamerica/.

IdahoPTV and PBS Online Resources:
Sites to See

Assignment Hanoi
http://www.pbs.org/hanoi/
For Pete Peterson: Assignment Hanoi, the production team followed the new ambassador bfor four months: from embassy briefings to remote mountain tops where forensic experts searched for American MIA remains; from a hole-in-the-wall noodle shop to Capitol Hill. What emerges is a portrait of Pete Peterson, the Vietnamese and their mutual efforts to mold a lasting relationship.

Children of the Camps
http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/
The Children of the Camps site captures the experiences of six Americans of Japanese ancestry who were confined as innocent children to internment camps by the U.S. government during World War II.

Hitchhiking Vietnam
http://www.pbs.org/hitchhikingvietnam/
Join Karin Mueller in a one-woman journey hitchhiking the Vietnamese countryside.

My America (or, Honk If You Love Buddha)
http://www.pbs.org/myamerica/
Join Renee Tajima-Peņa as she travels the United States to search for what it means to be Asian American.

Precious Children
http://www.pbs.org/preciouschildren/
Explore child care in modern-day China.

Six Billion and Beyond
http://www.pbs.org/sixbillion/
See section on China's population growth.

Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey
http://www.pbs.org/wayfinders/
Centuries before European explorers ventured beyond their shorelines, the ancestors of today's Polynesians had sailed to every habitable island in the far corners of the Pacific. This ancient Polynesian sea voyaging tradition comes to life again in "Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey."

NOVA: Secrets of Lost Empires--China Bridge
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/china/
The site documents a 1999 effort by a NOVA-assembled crew of scholars and timber framers to design and build a Chinese bridge known only from an ancient painting.

NOVA: Mysterious Mummies of China
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/chinamum/
Preserved in peat bogs, frozen in ice, embalmed on the banks of the Nile -- find out how mummies across the ages came to be preserved.