Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

During World War II, opportunities for women expanded, including in the military. The Coast Guard created a women’s reserve known as the SPARS in 1942. Thousands of women from across the United States enlisted. They went through basic training and then were stationed on the home front. Spars faced challenges and discrimination, but also contributed to the war effort in many ways.   This lesson offers resources for exploring these women's lives.

This lesson is part of a series teaching about the World War II home front, with Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, as an American World War II Heritage City. Japanese Americans were wrongfully relocated and incarcerated in incarceration sites beginning in 1942 under Executive Order 9066. This lesson focuses on the resettlement of Japanese Americans post-detention, and specifically those who resettled in the Dayton area.

This series will look beyond the historical facts relating to E.O. 9066 and explore the human side of the story. One incarcerate from each of the 10 camps with be highlighted in this year long series.

This article details the Munemitsu families experience with Japanese removal including be unjustly accused, forcibly removed from their home, and detained in incarceration camps.

Introduction to a series of lessons that support understanding the significance of Dayton, Ohio and Montgomery County as a WWII heritage city, including its contributions to home front efforts such as defense manufacturing, civilian involvement, and Armed Forces presence. One lesson focuses on Dayton, Ohio as a city for Japanese American resettlement. The lessons highlight specific contributions but connect to larger themes and understandings of the US home front.

Three lessons allow students to explore the challenges for education equality during World War II and study the people who fought to improve access for their communities. In support of the Entangled Inequalities: Japanese Incarceration and Mendez et al. v Westminster School District of Orange County et al. article series.

Los Alamos Lessons Introduction. All three lessons, and the culminating lesson, support the development of understanding the significance of Los Alamos County, New Mexico as an American World War II Heritage City: its impacts to home front efforts with its contributions to The Manhattan Project, and the civilians and service members who contributed to the work. The lessons highlight specific contributions but connect to larger themes and understandings of the U.S. home front.

Manzanar National Historic Site is the best-preserved of the Japanese American War Relocation Centers operated by the U.S. Government between 1942 and 1945. Incarcerees endured harsh living conditions and created a self-sustainable community by transforming the extreme desert environment into a more livable landscape. Today, historic fruit trees survive from the period as an indication of the resiliency of the incarcerated individuals who cared for them.

Alice Yick became the first Chinese American woman to work at the Charlestown Navy Yard and later served as an advocate for military veterans.

Assan Beach, the 2,500-yard shoreline stretching between Punta Adilok (Adelup Point) and Punta Assan (Asan Point), which the Marines in World War II called a "pair of devil horns," is a poignant symbol of the Guam's complex history, blending indigenous CHamoru traditions, wartime struggle, and ongoing military presence. In many ways, the story of Guam can be read through the story of Assan Beach. Talk a walk through history at Assan Beach.