Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey: Painting Her Story of WWII Japanese Internment | ARTrageous Online
Following the WWII Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. This led to the U.S. forcibly relocating and incarcerating about 120,000 people of Japanese descent, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens. Japanese Americans on the West Coast were taken to assembly centers before being sent to concentration camps in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas. Many were forced to sell their property, and in the camps, they lived in overcrowded barracks or old horse stalls surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards.
Lily Havey, born in Los Angeles in 1932, was one of them. At ten, she thought her family was going on a simple "camping trip" but instead, she was taken to the Santa Anita Assembly Center in Arcadia, California, and later to the Amache Relocation Center, a prison camp in Colorado, where she was interred until 1945.
After the war, Lily's family moved to Salt Lake City. She graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music, earned an MFA from the University of Utah, and taught high school for thirteen years before starting a stained-glass business.
In the 1980s, Lily recognized PTSD symptoms in herself after reading about Vietnam veterans, which led her to reflect on her imprisonment. She began painting watercolors about love, loss, and self-discovery through the lens of a girl navigating childhood and adolescence in a prison camp.
These paintings evolved into her memoir, Gasa Gasa Girl Goes to Camp: A Nisei Youth Behind a World War II Fence, published in 2014. The book blends storytelling, watercolor, and vintage photos, revealing the injustices faced by Japanese Americans during WWII.
Topics: WWII, Japanese American Internment, Discrimination, Loss of Identity, Resilience
Class: English, Social Studies, Fine Arts, Library Media
Grades: 7-12 | Time: 5 Hours
Platform: Online Learning Management System (LMS) with synchronous learning option (e.g., Zoom, Google Classroom)
Tech Tools: Social Media Access (Instagram, etc.)
Quick Links
Watch Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey on YouTube
CURRICULUM MAP: Includes Core Standards and Learning Intentions
Part I: Meet Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey
Part II: Growing Up in a Japanese Internment Camp
Part III: Lily's Search for Lost Identity After Japanese Internment
Introduction
Salt Lake artist Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey takes us on a personal journey of discovering who she is through painting her memories and trauma from a childhood spent in a Japanese Internment camp.
In this module, you will watch three videos that explore Lily’s journey before, during, and after World War II. The first video introduces her life before the war in Los Angeles, an American childhood of living in the suburbs, learning piano, and going to school—until the U.S. government unexpectedly arrives at her door, rounding up all Americans of Japanese descent and labeling them as security threats. They are forcibly relocated to prison camps in the deserts of the American West.
The second video is Lily’s account of living in the internment camps, beginning with the shock when arriving at the makeshift camp in Santa Anita, California, and eventually relocating by train to the permanent camp in Amache, Colorado. Through Lily's paintings and reflections on her childhood experiences, we see and hear her confusion, fear, and loneliness as she struggles to understand what is happening, leading to nightmares and anger.
The third video delves into Lily’s struggle with identity. Although she was born and raised American, her Japanese heritage led to her confinement in a prison camp, forcing her to question where she belonged. Lily explains the significance of her paintings, and how creating them became a vital path to healing.
Quotes to Use Throughout Curriculum:
“When I read the current news of migrant children separated from their parents and incarcerated in filthy camps, I reflect on my own experience during WWII.” Jon Yatabe (Topaz Survivor)
“All ten [internment camp] sites can only be called godforsaken. They were in places where nobody lived before and no one has lived since.” Roger Daniels (Historian
“Everybody’s hair and eyebrows would be snow-white with sand.” Mary Adachi (Topaz, Utah Survivor)
What’s included in the course?
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Essential Questions
How did internment affect the lives of Japanese Americans during and after WWII?
What role can art play in coping with trauma and injustices?
What role does art play in telling history and humanizing difficult historical moments?
How can we ensure that such an injustice does not happen again in the future?
Learning Intentions Upon completing this Module, students will:
Understand the historical context and injustice of Japanese American internment during World War II.
Articulate how art can be therapeutic.
Explain how art is an important mode for communicating our human experience.
Interact with digital storytelling as a learning tool.
Explain what conditions made the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII possible.
Reflect on why it is important to remember the internment of Japanese Americans and what lessons we can learn from this history today.
Employ art as an aesthetic tool to communicate messages about important historical and contemporary issues.
Success Criteria
I will retell the history of Japanese internment during WWII.
I will be a part of a community of memory to help prevent an injustice like the Japanese internment from happening in the future.
Learning Outline
This 5-hour module (depending on how in-depth you go) is based on the video presentation of Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey. It can be taught as a whole learning experience, or in chosen sections as time allows:
20 minutes: Launch Activity- Pre-Viewing: Video 1– The Story is In the Paintings?
15 minutes: While Viewing: Video 1– Gasa Gasa Girl Goes Camping
15 minutes: Post-Viewing: Video 1– Learning History Through Art I
20 minutes: Launch Activity- Pre-Viewing: Video 2–
15 minutes: While Viewing: Video 2– Growing up in a Japanese Internment Camp
15 minutes: Post-Viewing: Video 2– Learning History Through Art II
20 minutes: Launch Activity- Pre-Viewing: Video 3–
15 minutes: While Viewing: Video 3– Lily’s Search for Lost Identity After Internment
15 minutes: Post-Viewing: Video 3– Learning History Through Art III
75 minutes: Demonstration– Learning About Japanese American Internment through Ansel Adams’ Photographs
90 minutes: Making Connections: Arts Integration Project: The Art of Influence- Propaganda Posters
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Supplies for Pre-Viewing, Viewing, Post-Viewing Activities:
Supplies for Demonstration Activity
Supplies for Arts-Integration Activity:
Looking Like the Enemy (6:59 min) Historical video of the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor
Low Tech Option: Paper, Markers, Poster Paper
High Tech Option: Social Media Access
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Launch Activity–Pre-Viewing: Video 1: The Story is In the Paintings (A)
[75 min]
[Learning Intentions 1,3,4]
Procedures:
Hook: Project five of Lily’s paintings to the class from the Lily Havey Paintings folder saying the name of each painting out loud:
In a class discussion, have students discuss what they see in each painting and what they think each painting represents.
Tell Students: We are going to watch the first video of a series of 3 about Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey, who is now in her 90s and lives in Salt Lake City. She is a Japanese internment camp survivor.
Ask Students to share anything they know about the WWII Japanese internment camps.
Acknowledge Responses
While Viewing: Video 1: Gasa Gasa Girl Goes Camping
[15 min]
[Learning Intentions 1,4]
Procedures:
Introduce Lily: Read the unit and module introductions out loud to students.
Explain Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) — A mental health condition caused by extremely stressful or terrifying events. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares, and/or severe anxiety.
Show students the primary source document, signed by Roosevelt to initiate the evacuation of Japanese Americans and intern them: Executive Order 9066
Post-Viewing: Video 1: Learning History Through Art I
[20 min]
[Learning Intentions 1,3,4]
Procedures:
Project the same five paintings from the pre-viewing activity and ask students if they have anything to add to their original interpretations. Discuss.
Read Lily’s descriptions of these first five paintings from the Lily’s Painting Descriptions document aloud. Ask students whether anyone feels like their interpretation was close to Lily’s account.
Discuss what students learned from Lily about the Japanese Internment. Ask them what they found most surprising, disturbing, confusing, or memorable.
Pre-Viewing: Video 2: The Story is In the Paintings (B)
[75 min]
[Learning Intentions 1,3,4]
Procedures:
Hook: Project five more of Lily’s paintings to the class from the Lily Havey Paintings folder saying the name of each painting out loud:
In a class discussion, have students discuss what they see in each painting and what they think each painting represents.
Tell Students: We are now going to watch the second video that starts when Lily arrives by bus at the first Santa Anita prison camp in Arcadia, California.
While Viewing: Video 2: Growing up in a Japanese Internment Camp
[15 min]
[Learning Intentions 1,4]
Procedures:
Tell Students: Remember how Lily’s mom told her she and her little brother were going to camp? Ask students what Lily was expecting. Lily thought they were going to summer camp like the ones that the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts went to… with tents, sleeping bags, other kids, and fun activities.
Tell Students: Try to imagine how confused and scared Lily felt when at 10 years old, she arrived not at summer camp, but rather at a prison camp surrounded by barbed wire and filled with dozens of dirty tar and paper barracks. She was told that she was one of the lucky ones since others were given old horse stalls (show photo) that smelled of manure and hay to live in. However, Lily was not feeling very lucky.
Tell Students: As you watch Video 2, gather more information on Lily’s paintings we just analyzed. Feel free to jot down what you learn.
Play Video 2: Growing up in a Japanese Internment Camp (19:29 min)
Post-Viewing: Video 2: Learning History Through Art II
[20 min]
[Learning Intentions 1,3,4]
Procedures:
Project the same five paintings from the pre-viewing activity and ask students if they have anything to add to their original interpretations. Discuss.
Read Lily’s descriptions of these five paintings from the Lily’s Painting Descriptions document aloud. Ask students whether anyone feels like their interpretation was close to Lily’s account.
Discuss what students learned from Lily about the Japanese Internment. Ask them what they found most surprising, disturbing, confusing, or memorable.
Pre-Viewing: Video 3: The Story is In the Paintings (C)
[75 min]
[Learning Intentions 1,3,4]
Procedures:
Project five more of Lily’s paintings to the class from the Lily Havey Paintings folder saying the name of each painting out loud:
*In a class discussion, have students discuss what they see in each painting and what they think the painting represents.
While Viewing: Video 3: Lily’s Search for Lost Identity After Internment
[15 min]
[Learning Intentions 1,4]
Procedures:
Tell Students: Lily had always felt like any other American kid—until everything changed. Along with her family and around 120,000 other Americans of Japanese descent, she was abruptly rounded up and sent to prison camps. In an instant, they lost their homes, their businesses, their possessions, and the very fabric of their community. It was in those moments of profound loss that Lily began to realize the painful truth: the America she had always believed was home didn’t truly accept her. Yet, she didn’t feel Japanese either—she had never been to Japan, and the language was foreign to her, etc. Stranded between two worlds, she felt adrift, unsure of where she belonged.
Tell Students: We are going to watch the final video. In this last video, Lily, who begins to adopt her full name Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey, talks about how she began to find her identity and wholeness through painting.
Tell Students: As you watch Video 3, gather more information on Lily’s paintings we just analyzed. Feel free to jot down what you learn.
Play Video 3: Lily’s Search for Lost Identity After Internment (12:38 min)
Post-Viewing: Video 3: Learning History Through Art III
[20 min]
[Learning Intentions 1,2,3,4]
Procedures:
Project the same five paintings from the pre-viewing activity and ask students if they have anything to add to their original interpretations. Discuss.
Read Lily’s descriptions of these five paintings from the Lily’s Painting Descriptions document aloud. Ask students whether anyone feels like their interpretation was close to Lily’s account.
Discuss what students learned from Lily about the Japanese Internment. Ask them what they found most surprising, disturbing, confusing, or memorable.
Ask Students: How can creating art be therapeutic?
Ask Students: What was your experience learning about this WWII history through film and art? How did it compare to other ways you have been taught history?
(Optional) Show students the remaining paintings in the Lily Havey Paintings folder. Continue to ask students for their interpretations and then read Lily’s descriptions aloud.
Demonstration: Learning About Japanese American Internment through Ansel Adams’ Photographs
[75+ min]
[Learning Intention 1,3,4,6,7]
Procedures:
Tell Students: After the 120,000 Japanese Americans (in your mind picture all the women and men, elderly, children, and babies) were sent by bus and train to prison camps across the western US, Ansel Adams, a famous photographer, was one of the few artists allowed to document life in these camps, creating a series of photographs to show the public what life was like for the internees.
Ask Students: Is anyone familiar with Ansel Adams and his photographs?
Tell Students: Ansel Adams was an iconic American photographer (show his photograph) known for his black-and-white images of the American West. His work is often associated with nature, (optional- Google and show a few) but during WWII, he was commissioned by the U.S. government to photograph Japanese American internment camps, including Manzanar in California. *Dorothea Lange was also commissioned to photograph the evacuation. See the ‘Dig Deeper’ section for a reference to this.
Project the Ansel Adams Photographs: Born Free And Equal Collection, which features photographs of the Manzanar Internment Camp in California.
Group Discussion: Show students all the photos. Now select 3-4 photographs and ask students to analyze them through the following prompts, emphasizing how the images document the experiences of the internees, their resilience, and the injustice they faced.
What is the first thing you notice in these photographs?
What is the mood of the photograph? What elements (lighting, composition, contrast) create that mood?
How does Ansel Adams depict the internment camp and its residents? Are the people shown as victims, survivors, or something else?
What does the use of light and shadow convey about the harshness or conditions of the camps?
What stories can you infer from these images about the lives of those interned?
Ask students to write a short reflection (1-2 paragraphs) about how they think the photographs from Ansel Adams might have affected viewers when they were first released. How might they be interpreted today? How does it make them feel to see this part of American history captured through photography?
(Optional, time allowing) Invite students to create a drawing, watercolor, or digital piece inspired by the themes of the photographs they just analyzed. They can either depict scenes from the camp, the people, or create an abstract interpretation of the emotional weight conveyed in the photographs.
Invite a few students to share their reflections (either artwork or writing) with the class, fostering a respectful and open discussion about the impact of photography and art on historical memory and how it shapes public perception.
Discussion Prompts:
How can art, like Ansel Adams' photography, be used to document and tell stories about important historical events? What role does art play in humanizing difficult historical moments?
Why is it important to remember the internment of Japanese Americans, and what lessons can we learn from this history today?
Consider the ethical issues surrounding the internment camps and whether such actions could occur again. Encourage them to think critically about the balance between national security and individual rights.
Tell Students: In 1988, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which acknowledged the injustice of the internment camps, apologized for it, and provided a cash payment to each person who was incarcerated
(Optional) Show the 24-minute version of the film: Of Civil Wrongs and Rights. Discuss.
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Making Connections: Arts Integration Project – The Art of Influence- Propaganda Posters [90 min]
[Learning Intention 1,3,4,5,7]
Procedures:
Ask Students: What conditions made the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII possible? Discuss ideas
Tell Students: We are going to watch Looking Like the Enemy (6:59 min) - a historical video of the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Ask Students: What is the central message of this short film? Prompt students to think about the title.
Tell Students: There were multiple historical events that impacted both Japanese Americans/people of Japanese descent living in the United States.
Put the Historical Events (this is not a comprehensive list) on the board and have students draw a timeline on paper listing these events and writing down
Who is perpetrating the event?
What impact do you expect this event to have on Japanese Americans and people of Japanese descent?
*Choose one event for a ‘think aloud’ to help students understand the task.
Read Quote to Students: “Once characterized as ‘our worst wartime mistake,’ was neither a mistake nor an error in judgment . . . . The wartime abuse of Japanese Americans, it is now clear, was merely a chain in a link of racism that stretched back to the earliest contacts between Asians and whites on American soil.” (Famous quote by Historian Roger Daniels.)
Tell Students: We are going to look at another powerful tool that made the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII possible. The U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) created propaganda posters portraying Japanese people. Let’s look at these posters and discuss what impact you think these posters (hung in store windows, on telephone poles, basically in plain view all over cities) had on both Japanese Americans and non-Japanese Americans.
Show students the Japanese Propaganda Posters and discuss how the images portray Japanese people. Ask students what impact they expect these posters had.
Tell Students: These posters are what you call negative propaganda— information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. It can threaten a nation’s democracy and can be extremely dangerous to the targeted group.
Ask Students: Can you think of any negative propaganda that happens today?
Discuss how the rise of social media has changed how propaganda is spread (e.g., memes, viral posts, influencers, AI).
Discuss how these platforms amplify emotional appeals and viral messaging.
Ask Students: After learning about this history, can you better understand why Lily experienced an identity crisis that has lasted her whole life? Explain.
Tell Students: Propaganda doesn’t always have to be negative. There is also positive propaganda that can be used to spread awareness about important issues, promote positive values, and inspire people to take action. It can also be used to create a sense of unity and belonging among different groups of people. (Google positive propaganda and show a few examples.)
Tell Students: We are going to try to sway the public by creating positive propaganda posters. In pairs, research propaganda techniques before beginning.
Low Tech Option: Have students, in pairs, create positive propaganda paper posters on a current issue (e.g., environmentalism, voting, or social justice)
High Tech Options: Have students, in pairs, create digital positive propaganda on a current issue (e.g., environmentalism, voting, or social justice). They can create memes, Instagram stories, or digital posters.
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Invite students to “dig deeper” on these topics by providing additional options for research and reflection about the Japanese evacuation and internment during WWII and how it relates to contemporary topics including racism and identity.
Books
Gasa Gasa Girl Goes to Camp by Lily Havey
Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei (graphic memoir)
Posts
How Two Teenagers Created a Textbook For Racial Literacy
Topaz, Utah Japanese Internment Camp Facebook Page
Short Films
The Orange Story- Japan has just bombed Pearl Harbor, and the United States is now at war. Motivated by racism and wartime hysteria, the U.S. government cites national security concerns to justify the incarceration of all West Coast Japanese Americans, regardless of citizenship status and without due process. Follow Koji Oshima, a grocer, as he prepares to leave his home behind.
Of Civil Wrongs and Rights (24 min version) This two-time Emmy award-winning documentary Fred Korematsu was probably never more American than when he resisted and then challenged in court, the forced internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. OF CIVIL WRONGS AND RIGHTS is the untold history of the 40-year legal fight to vindicate Korematsu, which finally turned a civil injustice into a civil rights victory.
And Then They Came For Us (Rent on Vimeo or Free on Facing History and Ourselves website with a free membership) This documentary retells this difficult story and follows Japanese American activists as they speak out against the Muslim registry and travel ban. Knowing our history is the first step to ensuring we do not repeat it.
Lesson Plans
Facing History and Ourselves is a global educational organization that reaches millions of students worldwide annually. Multiple lesson plans include short films about the Japanese internment during WWII.
Websites
Correcting the Record on Dorothea Lange’s Japanese Internment Photos- Dorothea Lange, widely considered one of the best documentary photographers of all time, was hired by the government to document the evacuation of American Japanese from the U.S. coastline. Her photos were censored to cover up the atrocious breach of civil rights.
Middle Ground School Solutions helps educators face the challenges of a polarized society. Curriculum and programming position students to navigate lines of ideological divide, and customized workshops equip teachers to model the attitudes and behavior they wish to instill in students. Ultimately, Middle Ground School Solutions helps today’s young people grow into the tolerant, curious, and cooperative citizenry of tomorrow.