HIST 3220 Fall 2024 – Paper 1 Assignment
For the first paper assignment, you need to choose to write on one of the two themes below. Decide which topic you want to write about, and then write an essay in response to the question.
Your response should address all parts of the question. It should include specific
references, citations, and quotations from the readings listed. Your essay should make
reference to all of the readings in Group A and at least four of the sources in Group B
for either prompt.
You must cite sources to back up any statements you make.
You must cite sources using footnotes, in the Chicago or Turabian style. If you aren’t
familiar with this style, look it up online. There are many, many guides and examples.
The text of your paper should be double-spaced. It should be in 12-point Times New
Roman font, and roughly 1500 words (about five double-spaced pages). The paper is
due to be uploaded onto iCollege by 9pm on October 21st, 2024.
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Option 1 – The Legacy of Internment
How did internment during World War II affect Japanese communities in the United
States? How did those affected respond to their confinement, and what were the
longterm consequences of the internment camps and the Korematsu case?
Group A
1. Andre Kobayashi Deckrow, “A Community Erased: Japanese Americans in
El Monte and the Greater San Gabriel Valley,” from East of East (2020)
2. “3 Japanese-Americans Ask Court to Overturn Wartime Convictions” from
the New York Times (1983)
3. “Fu-Go,” Radiolab (2019)
Group B4. John Q. Barrett, “A Commander’s Power, a Civilian’s Reason: Justice
Jackson’s Korematsu Dissent,” Law and Contemporary Problems (2005)
5. Greg Robinson and Toni Robinson, “Korematsu and Beyond: Japanese
Americans and the Origins of Strict Scrutiny,
” Law and Contemporary Problems
(2005)
6. Cynthia Lee, “Documentary Explores Owen Valley, Site of Manzanar Camp,”
UCLA Newsroom (2021)
7. “George Takei on Life Inside a Japanese Internment Camp During WWII,”
Democracy Now (2014)
8. “Japanese American Women Speak on Internment During World War II”
(2017)
9. Yolanda C. Rondon, “Is Korematsu Really Dead?” Human Rights (2015)
Option 2 – Mystiques and Dreams: The Visions of Friedan and King
Published in the same year, 1963, two famous pieces of writing by Betty Friedan and
Martin Luther King Jr. called for change in the United States. What problems did
Friedan and King identify in American society? How did their analyses of social ills
and recommendations for change differ from each other, and in what ways were they
similar?
Group A
1. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, p. 15-32 (1963)
2. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963)
Group B
1. “Betty Friedan Interview,” The First Measured Century (2000)
2. Deirdre Carmody, “Feminists Scored By Betty Friedan,” NYT (1972)
3. Jacob Muñoz, “The Powerful, Complicated Legacy of Betty Friedan’s The
Feminine Mystique,
” Smithsonian Magazine (2021)
4. Jonathan Capehart, “How MLK’s Famous Letter Was Smuggled Out Jail,”
Washington Post (2019)5. Conra D. Gist and Karsonya Wise Whitehead, “Deconstructing Dr. Martin
Luther King’s ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ and the Strategy of Nonviolent
Resistance,
” Black History Bulletin (2013)
6. John Blake, “How MLK Became an Angry Black Man,” CNN (2013)
7. “The Voice of Septima Clark,” Remembering Individuals, Remembering
Communities: Septima P. Clark and Public History in Charleston