Walking through the streets of Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles in late June, Advanced Placement United States History teacher Alexander Henton pulled out his phone. He was snapping as many pictures of the dozens of different landmarks as he could. Specifically, the giant mural of Shohei Ohtani, a Japanese baseball player, in Little Tokyo and the burial sites at Manzanar, a concentration camp for Japanese-Americans.
It’s the first day of the teacher workshop, Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations, which Henton had been accepted to in early April. Henton applied for the Japanese-American-centered workshop because he knew little about it.
“I felt like it was an underrepresented topic in what I do as a history teacher,” Henton said. “I knew my students didn't know very much about it. We typically have done one little activity about it, and I think this story needs more.”
On Henton’s five-day summer trip to L.A., which was hosted by the Japanese-American National Museum, he visited Manzanar. He is now planning to share everything he learned with other SM East teachers, with the hope that they can cover more on this topic in classes. At this landmark, all attendees heard first-person testimonies from children who were in these camps with their families.
Many people think of concentration camps specifically as the camps in Nazi Germany at the time of the Holocaust, according to the educational director of the museum, Lynn Yamaski. Yamasaki has organized this workshop since its start in 2022 and believes that while Manzanar was a smaller-scale concentration camp, it should still be named a concentration camp rather than anything else when talked about.
“Historically, this experience has sometimes been referred to as internment camps or relocation centers,” Yamaski said. “We do feel that those are euphemisms. Those are words that kind of soften the severity of the history that happened there.”
According to Henton, the kids who were placed in Manzanar didn’t understand the gravity of the situation and were unaware they were being housed in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans. The parents had a very different experience at Manzanar. Their whole life had been uprooted, and they were forcibly taken to live there after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“They were first or second graders when they were at Manzanar, and they loved it,” Henton said. “They were like, it's a summer camp with their friends. They got to play with their friends all the time and see them all the time, do everything with them, but their parents were like, ‘I don't ever want to talk about this again because I had to drop everything.’”
Yamaski’s goal for the workshop was to share the story of Japanese-Americans and what they endured. Not just locally in California, but also across the U.S., where people are less familiar with the history.
The AP U.S. History curriculum scarcely covers Japanese internment, according to Henton. He feels that all AP U.S. History classes should spend more time on this topic since it’s not a very well-known story.
“I'm excited to actually get to talk to Mr. Henton about, and pick up on some of the things he learned and some of the resources he was able to get,” AP U.S. History teacher Jenny Jordan said. “Because obviously, we can always add to that curriculum.”
Henton created a presentation for his classes to recap his trip, featuring pictures taken at various locations, including Little Tokyo and Manzanar.
“He was very passionate about showing us something new,” junior Ella Lewis said. “I don't think anyone in the class, or honestly, a lot of people [at East], have heard about the story of [Manzanar] before, so he was really excited to share [the story].”
Most of the workshop was spent on walking tours in the neighborhoods housing Japanese-Americans. Then, on the last day, they took a four-hour bus ride to Manzanar.
Yamasaki’s hope for the workshop is that the teachers who attend learn more and share what they learn with their students, like how Henton shared his experience with his AP U.S. History classes. She also wants more people to hear about the museum and apply for the workshops.
“We're just so profoundly grateful to teachers like Mr. Henton, because we know it takes a lot of time and resources to spend a week of your summer vacation learning with us,” Yamasaki said. “We're really grateful to teachers who have come from near and far to join us in Los Angeles and really dive in, deep into this history with us, and we've learned so much from them.”
Henton plans to talk to Jordan and the other history teachers at SM East about his trip to hopefully add more assignments on this topic in the future.
“I certainly will share [the story] with some of our other social studies teachers about what this could mean for other topics in history, and how we can devote more time and energy to those topics,” Henton said.
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