The Unknown Great: Stories of Japanese Americans at the Margins of History

By Greg Robinson with Jonathan van Harmelen (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2024, 276 pp., $30, paperback)

“The Unknown Great: Stories of Japanese Americans at the Margins of History,” by Greg Robinson with Jonathan van Harmelen, provides a range of stories, portraits and explorations of critically understudied members of the Japanese American and broader Nikkei communities. This book represents the third such accounting of mini-biographies and overlooked stories produced by Robinson following “The Great Unknown”(2016) and “The Unsung Great”(2020) and does not disappoint in providing the reader with intriguing, touching, and refreshingly new narratives.

In “The Unknown Great,” Robinson teams up with several co-authors, chief among them van Harmelen with whom he writes eight pieces, with van Harmelen also offering an introductory note. Other co-authors for single pieces include Peter Eisenstadt, Brian Niiya, Bo Tao, Matthieu Langlois, Christian Heimburger, Zacharie Leclair, James Sun and Seth Jacobowitz. The inclusion of so many co-authors allows the book to take on a range of topics and individuals which would otherwise have been difficult for one person to tackle.

The volume is divided into nine thematic chapters, each of which contains multiple sub sections, resulting in a total of 43 individual stories. The themes include African American allies, interracialism, Japanese American and African American community connections, queer heritage, religious organizations, mixed-race stories, music, literature and journalism and the European Nikkei community. The division into smaller sections is the result of the book comprising mostly previously written and expanded articles and sections which appeared in print and online publications.

Regular readers of the Nichi Bei News may recognize several of the stories included in this new volume, particularly from chapters four and seven. As the authors admit in their introduction, the amalgamation of so many articles results in some overlap and repetition, especially when providing historical context. However, this quality has made the book accessible to readers who prefer to skip around, dipping into each section as interest captures them rather than approaching the book as a single narrative moving from start to finish.

The authors contend that this book represents not a deep dive into the stories of Japanese American and Nikkei individuals, but instead offers the first points of departure, providing inspiration for future researchers to explore. This is where the volume excels in its breadth of topics. Many of the chapters left me wishing for more. Stories like those of Issei xylophonist Yoichi Hiraoka (Chapter Seven) or Canadian born civil rights photographer Tamio Wakayama (Chapter Three), provide tantalizing tidbits into the range of professions and contributions of Nikkei. The chapters that touch upon interracial solidarities and conflicts and mixed-race identity are particularly refreshing, not only discussing points of celebration, but also less comfortable topics such as the discussion of the n-word in the Japanese American press.

Much of the volume reads well in conjunction with newer scholarship in Japanese American history from the past five years, fleshing out much of the community. Like a pointillist painting, each portion is discrete and yet stepping back creates a larger picture. For both scholars and more casual readers it provides a wealth of information.

If there is to be a fourth installment in this series I look forward to other facets of under-explored histories (little is written in this volume around Japanese American and Indigenous connections), as well as perhaps some more imagery (I was hoping for examples of Foujita’s paintings in the final chapter). But of course, this longing for more is part of the project, and one that is enjoyable to explore.