Review these terms and usages that may be unfamiliar before playing Never Again audio excerpts and plan to discuss with students as appropriate

Redress – take action where wrong has been done to repair, heal or make things right

Reparations – something provided (often money) to one who has been harmed by whoever harmed them. An individual can pay reparations for something they personally did (i.e. paying to replace something broken). A government can pay reparations for harm done where its laws or actions have been unfair or unjust.

Dissident – a person who publicly disagrees, especially with a government or other authority

Tubal ligation – a surgery that makes it impossible to become pregnant

Resolution – as opposed to a bill (or law) to take government action, a resolution is an agreement about a legislature’s internal operations. For example, a legislature can resolve to honor, criticize or apologize for a certain person or action.

“Yellow Peril” – a stereotype that people of Asian descent are dangerous, particularly to white or European people. For example, a 1905 headline in the San Francisco Chronicle read: “Yellow Peril: How the Japanese Crowd Out the White Race.”

Scapegoating – placing blame on a specific person or group for a harm or perceived harm that is not actually their fault

Hysteria – very emotional speech or behavior that seems excessive and/or out of control. Mass hysteria is when this speech or behavior spreads through a population.

Tableau – a visually striking picture, scene or arrangement of objects. In theater, a group of actors arranged as though they were frozen in one moment, like a photograph.

Prisoner of War – someone who is imprisoned or detained in a country that is at war with that person’s home country. Usually a soldier, but sometimes used to describe a civilian (many U.S. civilians were trapped in Japan when Pearl Harbor was bombed and not allowed to return home).

Hostage exchange – when two countries in conflict agree to trade or exchange prisoners, in theory allowing people on both sides to return home. In the case of Japanese Latin Americans, Japan was *not* their home country.

Justification – a fact or situation that is used to explain or justify decisions or actions; an excuse for your actions (whether real or invented).

Generation – all the people born at around the same time in a society or a family. The differences in how grandparents, parents and children in the same family react to an event is a generational difference.

Issei, Nisei, Sansei, Yonsei – describes how many generations back a Japanese immigrant had family born in Japan (in English we would say “first generation”, “second generation” and so forth). An issei was born in Japan, a nisei has parents born in Japan (but they themselves were born in a new country). A sansei has grandparents who immigrated and a yonsei great-grandparents.

Catharsis – a release of strong emotions, which can help relieve emotional pain

Trauma – a deeply distressing or disturbing experience that has lasting and often unexpected effects.

Anxiety – a sense of severe worry or concern, often without any apparent reason (even to the person who is anxious)

“Model Minority” myth – a stereotype that Asian Americans are somehow “trained,” due to their ethnic background, to work hard and do well (with a related assumption that Asian Americans “automatically” achieve highly without any special effort). Asian Americans may also be viewed as “quieter” and less likely to be “troublemakers” than people of other races and ethnicities. People in power have labeled these “good” traits for new immigrants—the word “model” means ideal—something to be copied.

Perspective – a particular attitude toward looking at something; your point of view.

Activism/Activist – an activist is a person who works to bring about an important change they believe needs to happen. The work of trying to make an important or necessary change happen is activism.

“N-doubleA” (short for NAACP) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – civil rights organization founded in 1909 with a mission to advance justice for Black Americans

John Conyers – a late Black civil rights activist and member of Congress. A year after the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided an apology and reparations to Japanese Americans, Conyers introduced H.R.40 to provide reparations for slavery. The bill has been re-introduced by others frequently, but never passed. The bill number “40” (i.e. H.R.40 or S.40), a reference to “40 acres and a mule” – a reparations measure won by Black activists after the Civil War but only ever minimally enacted.

Loyalty Questionnaire – in 1943, the government administered a survey across the concentration camps that had originally been written only for military recruits. Incarcerated Japanese Americans were angered and confused by the survey (which among other things asked them to renounce a loyalty to Japan that as U.S. citizens they had never had). Many failed at or actively resisted giving the “right” answers. Despite being told by social scientists that this was likely confusion and protest, not “disloyalty,” Congress and FDR used the high number of “wrong” answers to justify pressuring Japanese Americans to give up their citizenship and “self-deport” to Japan.

IACHR (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights) – part of the Organization of American States (OAS), of which all 35 independent countries in North and South America (including the U.S.) are members. In 2020, the IACHR ruled that the U.S. had violated the rights of Japanese Latin Americans in not including them in the reparations and apology of 1988 and recommended specific actions. The U.S. government does participate in the IACHR to some extent, but does not necessarily follow its rulings.

Conflict — a struggle, fight or problem, often between people or groups with opposite views on some issue or event (we can also have internal conflicts when we do not always see or react in the same way to the same issue or situation). In literature or storytelling, the conflict is the problem that drives the story forward. If a storyteller does not (or can not, in the case of a fact-based story) resolve the main conflict, we might experience the story as “open-ended”.

Detention – being detained or not allowed to leave. Often used to describe imprisonment prior to (or without) any legal process or explanation

Pilgrimage – a journey (often in a group of like-minded people) to a place that has special significance to you, often for a religious, spiritual or moral purpose

Solidarity - support for a person or group with whom you share common interests, concerns or beliefs. Often we say we act in solidarity (or “stand in solidarity”) when we support a person or group whose challenges don’t directly affect us, but whose concerns and well-being are important to us

Asylum – protection offered to people from another country who have good reason to fear returning to that country. The U.S. has signed international treaties and passed federal laws agreeing to provide asylum under certain conditions. It is legal to enter the U.S. at any official border crossing for the purposes of requesting asylum.

Tsuru – Japanese for crane, a bird that has a wide wingspan as it flies. Cranes are a symbol of good luck and longevity and origami cranes are folded for special occasions.

Origami – Japanese art form of folding paper to create sculptural pieces. A tsuru or crane is a common simple origami to make.

Taiko – Japanese for “drum” and known as a music form that uses very large, very loud drums

Jim Crow – the era after slavery when discriminatory laws against Black Americans were still in place, such as segregated schools, public places and professions

Structural racism – laws or common practices that lead to unfair or unjust situations for people of a certain race (usually distinguished from individual racist actions)

Coalition – people or groups from different backgrounds or experiences come together to take an action that they all agree needs to happen.

Afro Nikkei – Nikkei means a person of Japanese descent who does not live in Japan. Afro Nikkei can be people of Japanese descent in Africa or people of mixed Japanese and African heritage in other places, including the U.S.