History Matters: Children’s Art Education inside the Japanese American Internment Camp

Abstract

What did art education look like within the confines of the Japanese American Internment Camp classrooms? Did the art education in the camps reflect the same curriculum that was being taught outside the camps and what other factors may have played a part in the students’ experience? I propose that there were at least three significant influences on the art education of Japanese American children in the World War II camps. The first involves the War Relocation Authority’s vision for a progressive education and other influences on school curriculum during wartime. The second examines the considerable parental concern that Japanese American children, incarcerated for so long, would receive an inferior education and would fall behind. The third is the dramatic impact of the required “loyalty questionnaire.”