Albers, Clem. Salinas, Calif. Apr. 1942. Young evacuees of Japanese descent playing baseball on day of arrival at the assembly center. They will be transferred, later, to a War Relocation Authority center for the duration of the war. 1942. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021647293/.
In this lesson, students will closely examine a historical photograph of children playing baseball inside a World War II assembly center for Japanese Americans. They will begin by recording their initial observations on the left side of a double-entry journal. After sharing and discussing their ideas in small groups, students will add new insights to the same side of their journal. The class will then engage in a whole-group discussion focused on how photographs can simultaneously reflect resilience and obscure difficult truths. To conclude the lesson, students will write a reflection on the right side of their journal, explaining how their understanding of the photo has changed and/or deepened based on historical context and discussion.
Japanese American incarceration was the forced relocation by the US government of thousands of Japanese Americans to detention camps during World War II. That action was the culmination of the federal government’s long history of racist and discriminatory treatment of Asian immigrants and their descendants that had begun with restrictive immigration policies in the late 1800s.
Source: https://www.britannica.com/event/Japanese-American-internment
- Read the full title of this photo and then look at the details. What do you notice about the children and adults in this photograph?
- In what ways does this photograph reveal important truths about history while also leaving out or hiding other parts of the story?
- How might this photo have been used to influence public opinion?
ELA Standard
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
Social Studies Standard
HSS Standard 11.7.5. Discuss the constitutional issues and impact of events on the U.S. home front, including the internment of Japanese Americans (e.g., Fred Korematsu v. United States of California Department of Education) and the restrictions on German and Italian resident aliens; the response of the administration to Hitler’s atrocities against Jews and other groups; the roles of women in military production; and the roles and growing political demands of African Americans.
Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
- Begin the lesson by introducing the photo without context.
- Provide each student with a copy of a double-entry journal (or direct students to create their own by making a two-column chart on notebook paper).
- On the left side of the double-entry journal, ask students to describe what they see in the photo and write about what they think is happening.
- Leave the right side of the chart blank for now.
- Provide background information by sharing the historical context of the photo (provided above) or direct students to research what they can learn about Executive Order 9066 using technology devices in the classroom.
- Form small groups and then ask students to revisit the image to further discuss and add to their thoughts to their notes on the left side of their double-entry journals, using the following questions as a guide:
- What emotions might the children have felt?
- Why might this moment have been photographed?
- What’s missing from the frame?
- Whole class debrief:
- Explore how images can reflect resilience but also obscure truth. Ask:
- Why is it important to revisit and reinterpret historical sources as we learn more about their context?
- How can visual and written texts work together to humanize historical injustice?
- Explore how images can reflect resilience but also obscure truth. Ask:
- Exit Ticket: Reflect in Journal
- Returning to the double-entry journal, on the right side, ask students to reflect on the image now that they have learned more about the context of the photo and discussed the influence it may have had. How has their interpretation changed? What do they now understand that they didn’t before?
- As an extension, pair this photograph with the memoir Farewell to Manzanar and consider exploring the themes of childhood innocence, resilience, and loss of freedom communicated through both the image and the story.
- Questions to support analysis with this text:
- How does Jeanne’s experience compare to what we see in the photograph?
- What emotions and realities does the photo not show that the text helps reveal?
- How do both sources help us better understand the complexity of internment?
- Questions to support analysis with this text:
Albers, Clem. Salinas, Calif. Mar. 1942. Quarters of evacuees of Japanese descent at assembly center, before the streets were graded. The evacuees will be transferred, later, to War Relocation Authority centers for the duration of the war. 1942. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021647292/.
Albers, Clem. Salinas, Calif. Apr. 1942. Evacuees, of Japanese descent, being vaccinated by a fellow physician at the assembly center prior to their transfer to a War Relocation Authority center. 1942. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021647290/.