MASAO: A NISEI SOLDIER’S SECRET AND HEROIC ROLE IN WORLD WAR II By Sandra Vea (Seattle: DMA Books, 2016, 360 pp., $18.99, paperback) As a visit to almost any American new or used bookstore will quickly confirm, military history is an exceedingly popular genre of literature. This is particularly the case as it pertains to […]
Not fit for print (Apparently in the white media establishment)
January 19, 2017 by Leave a Comment
First it was letters to the Travel Section of the Los Angeles Times, followed by an op-ed piece in The New York Times. These opinion pieces distorted the real experiences of the majority of Japanese Americans who had been placed into United States-style concentration camps during World War II. Seems like with the rise of […]
Abe offers condolences, hails reconciliation at Pearl Harbor
January 5, 2017 by Leave a Comment
HONOLULU — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered his “sincere and everlasting condolences” Dec. 27 at Pearl Harbor for those who died in the Japanese attack there in 1941, while praising the power of the reconciliation between Japan and the United States in the 75 years since then. In a speech following talks with U.S. […]
A ‘powerful’ (and ‘critical’) case for the Asian American Movement
January 1, 2017 by Leave a Comment
SERVE THE PEOPLE: MAKING ASIAN AMERICA IN THE LONG SIXTIES By Karen L. Ishizuka (London: Verso, 2016, 288 pp., $29.95, hardcover) In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, which prompted the U.S. government to imprison 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry (two-thirds of which were U.S. citizens) in concentration camps, a […]
Memoir offers insights into WWII JA teen’s relationships
January 1, 2017 by Leave a Comment
American Yellow By George Omi (Sarasota, Fla.: First Edition Design Publishing, 2016, 140 pp., $14.95, paperback) George Omi’s “American Yellow” (2016), a memoir on his Japanese American teenage experiences during World War II and incarceration, provides an intimate lens to view his relationships with his family, community and outside world. The memoir offers a glimpse […]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: Biracial MIS veteran Clarke Kawakami’s multifaceted legacy
January 1, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Clarke Hiroshi Kawakami, a man who made his mark in many different fields, was born in Momence, Ill. in 1909. His mother was Mildred Clarke, a white American, and his father was the well-known Issei author and journalist Kiyoshi Karl Kawakami. Kiyoshi Kawakami was born in Yonezawa, Japan in the 1870s (most early sources claim […]
Japan, U.S. to hold 1st joint ceremony at Pearl Harbor
December 1, 2016 by Leave a Comment
HONOLULU — Japan and the United States will hold on Dec. 8 the first joint ceremony to remember those killed in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Consulate General in Honolulu said Nov. 28. The joint ceremony will be held the day after the U.S. Navy and the U.S. National Park Service hold […]
Prewar Nikkei life depicted
July 21, 2016 by Leave a Comment
YOKOHAMA, CALIFORNIA By Toshio Mori, introduction to the 2015 edition by Xiaojing Zhou (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015, 201 pp., $19.95, paperback) The new edition of Toshio Mori’s short story anthology “Yokohama, California” forms part of the new University of Washington Press reprint series of Asian American classics, joining such titles as Miné Okubo’s […]
DOR recalls Executive Order 9066, decries anti-Muslim hatred
March 17, 2016 by Leave a Comment
LOS ANGELES — The incarceration experience of Japanese Americans during World War II, based on racial hatred, and its similarity to the modern day anti-Muslim animosity in America, was a key topic of discussion during the 2016 Day of Remembrance, held Feb. 20 at the Japanese American National Museum. The Japanese American community’s annual Day […]
Carl Takei shares family memories of incarceration during World War II
Seventy-five years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. While the order avoided naming any particular ethnic group, the president and his advisers intended it to target Japanese Americans. Military officials “evacuated” Americans of Japanese ancestry to “relocation centers.” 120,000 men, women, and children had just days to divest themselves of all they owned […]