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Asian American and Pacific Islander studies resources for the classroom
All chapters of Foundations and Futures include lesson plans and curricular tools that are designed for high school students and grounded in ethnic studies pedagogy. Feel free to search our repository of primary sources and material that helps bring Asian American and Pacific Islander histories and experiences into the classroom.
Multimedia
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Matsuura Company Tailors
Japanese American-owned businesses, like this tailor shop in Los Angeles’ “Little Tokyo,” clustered in Japantowns on the West Coast.
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Yuka and Michi Yasui
Yuka (left) and Michi (right) Yasui, circa 1929, were raised to appreciate their Japanese heritage. Yuka also took tap and ballet lessons. Michi took piano lessons. Both girls performed publicly, even appearing on a Portland radio program, Stars of Tomorrow.
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Japanese Community Hall Christmas pageant in Hood River, Oregon
Christmas pageant inside the Hood River Japanese Community Hall, circa 1931.
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Terminal Island Cannery Workers
Japanese American women leaving work at a fish cannery on Terminal Island. Issei established fishing communities there and in San Diego and Monterey, California.
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City Market of Los Angeles
Issei farmers and businessmen founded the City Market of Los Angeles in 1909 to sell and promote the produce Japanese farmers raised. Similarly, Issei growers established the Southern California Flower Market in 1912, the first major wholesale flower market in Los Angeles.
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“Japs Bring Frightful Disease”
This photo accompanied a 1905 article in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper that inaccurately characterized Japanese immigrants as disease carriers who were threats to public health.
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Japan to Hood River Valley Map
Map pinpointing the area from which Masuo and Shidzuyo immigrated and also pinpointing the Hood River Valley.
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Masuo Yasui and Friend Katsusaburo Tamura
Masuo Yasui (left) with a friend, circa 1907, outside the Portland Japanese Methodist Mission where Masuo lived at the time.
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Japanese Railroad Workers
Between 1890 and 1907, about 132,000 young Japanese men came to the continental United States. Many, like Masuo Yasui’s father and brothers, and the men pictured here, built the railroads that crossed western and Rocky Mountain states.
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Boys in Front of Manzanar Cemetery Monument
To ensure that this history is not forgotten, Japanese Americans have organized pilgrimages to former campsites, and they have advocated for preservation of some as educational centers. Pictured here are participants in the first pilgrimage, in 1969, to the site of the Manzanar camp.
Chapters
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Module
Module 3: To Do Something or Nothing: The Decision to Take Action
Helen Zia
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Module 4: Building a Pan-Asian American Civil Rights Movement
Helen Zia
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Module 5: The Continued Impact and Legacy of Vincent Chin’s Story
Helen Zia
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Japanese Americans
Brian Niiya and Kristen Hayashi
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Module 1: Still Here After Five Generations and Counting
Brian Niiya and Kristen Hayashi
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Japanese Americans
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Module 2: Building Homes and Community in the Shadow of Two Empires (1885-1941)
Brian Niiya and Kristen Hayashi
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Japanese Americans
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Module 3: Looking Like the Enemy (1942-1945)
Brian Niiya and Kristen Hayashi
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Japanese Americans
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Module 4: From Pariahs to “Model Minorities”
Brian Niiya and Kristen Hayashi
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Japanese Americans
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Module 5: Balancing Past and Present (1970s to the present)
Brian Niiya and Kristen Hayashi
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Japanese Americans
