Virtual Pajama Party
Channel: US National Archives
Date: 29/09/2021

The National Archives hosted a Virtual Pajama Party for kids aged 8-12. This semi-annual program focused on the book Sylvia and Aki, written by Winifred Conkling. In the book, Conkling presents a fictional account of the friendship between Sylvia Mendez and Aki Munemitsu, whose lives intersected during World War II. Mendez is Mexican-Puerto Rican and Munemitsu is Japanese American. Mendez’s family was the lead plaintiff in Mendez v. Westminster, a civil rights case that served as a precursor to Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, KS. Munemitsu was relocated with her family during WWII to the Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona while the Mendez family took over maintaining the Munemitsu family farm in Orange County, California. Pajama Party attendees learned about the importance of civil rights and the value of friendship.