The Paper Crane Project was formed by four people who came together to consider how to respond to the discarded Hiroshima texts following the passing of the TEAACH Act: two middle school teachers at National Teachers Academy (NTA), CPS, Laura Gluckman and Jessica Kibblewhite; a CPS parent and lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Aiko Kojima Hibino; an ethicist professor whose work centers on nuclear discourse and environmental ethics at Depaul University, Yuki Miyamoto. Initially, the four met to consider the broader implications of the books left in the dumpster. From this conversation, their collective work grew to consider what they could do to actively address the noticeable dearth of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) history taught in American schools. They questioned why the history and complexities of the atomic bombing of Japan is not widely in Chicago Public Schools, if at all. Their partnership and action grew from there, and their collective work continues to evolve today, as reflected in this expanding resource collection and inquiry-based curriculum.

***

In the summer 2019, a Chicago Public high school located in the north of the city discarded a number of copies of John Hersey’s Hiroshima into a dumpster. The rationale behind this was that the story of Hiroshima is available online, and thus, disposing of the physical copies would save space, especially as the budget to run the school library had become tight. Given the fact that The Great Gatsby paperbacks were scattered among Hersey’s books, throwing away Hiroshima did not stem from anti-Japanese sentiments. Nonetheless, tossing the physical copies into the dumpster suggests that the library failed to recognize the importance of accessibility to the stories in this reportage. 

However, the stories retold by John Hersey in 1946 are ever more important in the era of the heightening of racial tension observed in BLM, of gender inequality expressed in #MeToo, and of the dire situation of our environmental degradation—which is often a manifestation of environmental racism and classism.  

The project focused on curriculum development for 6th graders, in hope that we would expand it later to older and younger graders. Given that Illinois is the first state that requires public schools to teach a unit on Asian American history by the passing of the TEAACH act (Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History), developing and implementing a curriculum that addresses Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing and  nuclear testings in the Pacific is more than appropriate. Or rather, our curriculum would be a meaningful addition to the newly required unit in social studies due to the TEAACH. Moreover, by the nature of intersectionalities of the subject matter listed below, we propose teaching materials employed in social studies, science, and ELA, that incorporate critical race theory, gender studies, colonial studies, and environmental justice into AAPI and U.S. history survey.

For example, while North Korea has tested its nuclear weapons six times, the U.S. has exploded 1,032 bombs in and outside U.S. territories—in particular, over 200 atmospheric tests in Nevada test sites and on the Marshall Islands, where 67 bombs were detonated before their independence in 1986. Documents named Project 4.1 reveal a scientist’s rationale, stating “they [the Marshallese] were more like us than mice.” Those nuclear tests, or experiments—literally “tests” on the human body—went back to 1945’s atomic bombing in Japan. Immediately after the bombing, the U.S. established a research center, called the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, which examined the sufferers’ bodies, collected tissues and body parts from them, yet offered no treatment. Rather, the institution contributed to the downplaying of the horror of radiation exposure.  

In New Mexico, indigenous people worked in uranium mining, but they were not informed about the threat to their health from their exposure to radiation. They also suffered from fallout from the nuclear tests in Nevada test sites (yet Radiation Exposure Compensation Act does not recognize New Mexico downwinders), as well as contamination from production sites such as Los Alamos National Laboratory. On top of that is nuclear waste—the high-level radioactive waste—from all over the country (and beyond; in fact, there is a plan to transport Japan’s nuclear waste to New Mexico), produced by disintegrated nuclear weapons and nuclear energy plants. 

At the same time, Japan was by no means a mere victim. Because of its expansionism and colonialism, supported by a fascist regime, its colonized subjects and controlled populace suffered a number of atrocities committed by the imperial army. In particular, a number of Koreans came to Japan seeking employment, as their country’s economy had been controlled and people were exploited by their colonizer. As a result, approximately 10% of the atomic bomb sufferers in Hiroshima were originally from the Korean Peninsula. After the bombing, those Korean residents and their descendants received little to no treatment at the triage center once their identity was revealed. 

To give just a few examples, nuclear discourse offers many ways to approach contemporary and down-to-earth issues while it unpacks the social structure that creates and sustains inequality among citizens.