| “In
Search of No-No
Boy: Classroom Edition” is a special 23-minute
documentary and online Classroom
Guide now
available without charge to secondary and community college teachers
in Washington
State
only,
under a grant from the Washington
Civil Liberities Public Education Program. The Classroom
Guide includes middle and high school lessons aligned with the Civics:
Constitutional Issues Classroom-Based Assessments for Washington
state. To obtain a copy, contact
us.
Update:
Monday, October 22, 2007
Thanks to the 40 teachers and librarians
who came to our recent workshops in Yakima and Edmonds and picked
up a copy of our DVD and
Classroom
Guide. If you're checking back, please write
to us with stories of how you are using the film in your classes.
 For
those who asked about lessons that connect the story of the WW2
Nisei draft resisters with the contemporary story of Army Lt. and
Iraq war dissenter Ehren Watada, here is a link to the teacher's
guide for
the Washington Civil Liberties project from the Bainbridge Island
Japanese
American
Community, Civil Liberties in a Time of War.
The film connects the Constitutional stand of Heart Mountain Fair
Play Committee leader Frank Emi with the current legal challenge
to
the Iraq war
by Lt. Watada, presented in a civil liberties context with a teacher's
guide to Classroom-Based Assessment activities. Like
our project, teachers in Washington State can obtain the film as
a free DVD. Write to us and we will forward your request to the
Bainbridge Island distributors.
Another
free resource linking Frank Emi to Ehren Watada is the recent
film Watada, Resister, produced by filmmaker Curtis Choy. Watch
it online on YouTube.
If
you're near Seattle, the novel No-No Boy will
be the subject of a book club talk at the Columbia Branch library
in South Seattle.
Sponsored by SouthEast Effective Development (SEED)
as part
of its Arts
Gumbo Book Club, the discussion will be led by producer
Frank Abe. Come out Thursday evening, Nov. 8, at 6:45 p.m. to
the
Columbia Library, 4721 Rainier Avenue S. in Seattle.
Pursue
the mystery behind the writing of the first and most influential
Japanese American novel, No-No
Boy, and the tragedy surrounding the premature death of
the author, Seattle native John Okada. Okada
captured the authentic voice of Japanese Americans struggling to
find their place in the world after returning from the trauma of
mass incarceration and the violation of their civil liberties.
He died in obscurity, believing America had rejected his work. The
film features
interviews with Okada’s
family, commentary from scholars, and excerpts from the
novel. The
film is also a work-in-progress
for public television.
For
more information, or to request a copy of the film on DVD
(teachers at accredited schools in Washington State only please),
please contact us in Seattle via
e-mail.
“In
Search of No-No Boy” is produced with support
from the Washington
Civil Liberties Public Education Program and
the Office
of Arts & Cultural
Affairs, City of Seattle. It was developed in association
with the Independent Television
Service (ITVS)
with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Special thanks
to the Ford Foundation.
Entire
site © 2007 by Frank Abe
|
