The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration

March 15, 2024
The duo who won the American Book Award for John Okada (2018), filmmaker and activist Abe (We Hereby Refuse, 2021) and academic Cheung, reunite to present "the collective voice of a people defined by a specific moment in time," the removal of more than 125,000 Japanese Americans, the majority U.S. citizens, from their homes, businesses, and communities and their incarceration in concentration camps, stripped of their "inalienable rights" during WWII "based solely upon the race they shared with a wartime enemy." Meticulously compiled and edited in chronological order, "the selections favor writing that is pointed rather than poignant"; the collection features essays, poetry, letters, graphic panels, fiction, and historical and legal documents. While some of the pieces might be familiar, many have been recovered from archives, while others are newly translated from Japanese. What pervades throughout is a sense of profound, shocked betrayal by a government driven by myopic hysteria and rampant racism. The demand to prove loyalty with their very lives on the front lines (the segregated Japanese American 442nd Unit would prove to be the most decorated in U.S. military history) is a haunting legacy. Most sobering are contemporary repercussions. These voices "form an epic narrative with a singular vision of America's past, one with disturbing resonances with the American present."

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June 21, 2024

Editors Abe (creator of the PBS documentary Conscience and the Constitution; coauthor, We Hereby Refuse) and Chung (English, Smith Coll.; editor, The Hanging on Union Square) have brought together 68 primary- and secondary-source texts (some previously published, some newly translated) about the period during World War II when the U.S. government imprisoned 125,000 Americans with Japanese ancestry in concentration camps. This collection organizes essays, memoirs, newspaper columns, letters, and poetry into three chronological parts: before the camps, in the camps, and after the camps (the latter section spotlighting responses from survivors and their descendants). The texts describe the community that existed, the arrests, and the people's response to their incarceration, plus firsthand descriptions of the camps and their treatment of prisoners. The volume offers multifaceted reflections from Japanese Americans who attempted to retain their dignity during a time when their government dehumanized them. VERDICT An accessible examination of the U.S. concentration camps that held people solely because of their race and heritage, plus a look at how they impacted society and generations to come. Important for both researchers and students.--John Rodzvilla

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