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Audiobook and table of contents for Penguin anthology

fire circle with men silhouetted inside a canvas tent
The square artwork for the audiobook version of “The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration.”

I could not believe there would be interest in an audiobook of our anthology of camp literature coming May 14, but as a Facebook friend pointed out, having a set of audio readings is not just entertainment for long road trips or jogging with earbuds, but an essential access for the visually impaired.

Floyd Cheung and I were asked to include audiobook rights in securing our various permissions to reprint so we knew something might be coming, but the project became real when Penguin Random House Audio assigned us a bright young producer in Denise Lee. She came to us with a list of voice talents that we immediately liked, and under her guidance Floyd and I completed voice casting last week.

logo of Penguin Random House Audio with headphones over a book laid flat
The clever logo for Penguin Random House Audio.

As a result, we’ve now assembled an A-list team of four Asian American actors and poets, two women and two men, recording the 68 selections in the anthology later this month. We’ll take our cue from the publisher as to when to reveal their names but it’s remarkable to see how having these four different tones will bring out so much of the character of the authors of our selected works.

Denise has great ideas for how to make this a true audio experience and after discussing them with her on the phone, she asked me today to read our preface, introductions, and acknowledgements, which I agreed to do. So ready or not we’ll have eight hours of readings for sale on the same date of May 14.

I also just discovered that if you scroll down the Penguin Classics online book page, they’ve posted the Table of Contents for the anthology. So, here’s your first preview of what’s inside. A note on some titles you may not recognize: to create a more seamless reading experience, we’ve used the chapter titles of many short selections, with the books from which they are drawn named in the Credits and Copyright Notices. Where chapters or excerpts do not come with a heading, we have taken the liberty of adding a title drawn from inside the text itself.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface by Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung

THE LITERATURE OF JAPANESE AMERICAN INCARCERATION

PART I: BEFORE CAMP
Introduction to Part I

Arrival and Community

1. Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama, “Arrival in San Francisco” and “The Turlock Incident”
2. Ayako Ishigaki (as Haru Matsui), “Whither Immigrants”
3. Toshio Mori, “Lil’ Yokohama”

Arrest and Alien Internment
4. Shelley Ayame Nishimura Ota, “Those Airplanes Outside Aren’t Ours”
5. Kamekichi Tokita, “1941 (Showa 16)”
6. John Okada (as Anonymous), “I Must Be Strong”
7. Bunyu Fujimura, “Arrest”
8. Fujiwo Tanisaki, “They Took Our Father Too”
9. Otokichi Ozaki (as Muin Ozaki), “Fort Sill Internment Camp”
10. Yasutaro Soga (as Keiho Soga), “Sand Island and Santa Fe Internment Camps”
11. Iwao Matsushita, “I Can’t Bear to Be Stigmatized as ‘Potentially Dangerous’”

Cooperation and Refusal
     EXECUTIVE ORDER
12. James Omura, “Has the Gestapo Come to America?”
13. Mike Masaoka, “Decision to Cooperate”
INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY
14. Gordon K. Hirabayashi, “Why I Refuse to Register for Evacuation”
15. Charles Kikuchi, “Kicked Out of Berkeley”

PART II: THE CAMPS
Introduction to Part II

Fairgrounds and Racetracks

16. Monica Sone, “Life in Camp Harmony”
17. Mitsuye Yamada, “Curfew”
18. Portland Senryū Poets, “Resolution and Readiness, Confusion and Doubt”
19. Yoshio Abe, “Lover’s Lane”

Deserts and Swamps
     RECOMMENDATIONS TO MILTON EISENHOWER, DIRECTOR, WAR RELOCATION AUTHORITY
20. Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey, “Fry Bread”
21. Toyo Suyemoto, “Barracks Home”
22. Authorship uncertain, “That Damned Fence”
23. Kiyo Sato, “I Am a Prisoner in a Concentration Camp in My Own Country”
24. Masae Wada, “Gila Relocation Center Song”
25. Cherry Tanaka, “The Unpleasantness of the Year”
26. Hiroshi Nakamura, “Alice Hasn’t Come Home”
27. Joe Kurihara, “The Martyrs of Camp Manzanar”
28. Iwao Kawakami, “The Paper”
29. Nao Akutsu, “Send Back the Father of These American Citizens”

Registration and Segregation
     STATEMENT OF UNITED STATES CITIZEN OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY
30. Topaz Resident Committee, “We Respectfully Ask for Immediate Answers”
31. Kentaro Takatsui, “The Factual Causes and Reasons Why I Refused to Register”
32. Sada Murayama, “Loyalty”
33. Mitsuye Yamada, “Cincinnati”
CONFIDENTIAL STATEMENT TO DILLON MYER, DIRECTOR, WAR RELOCATION AUTHORITY
34. Kazuo Kawai (as Ryōji Hiei), “This Is Like Going to Prison”
35. Noboru Shirai, “The Army Takes Control”
36. Hyakuissei Okamoto, “Several brethren arrested after martial law was declared at Tule Lake in November 1943”
37. Violet Kazue de Cristoforo, “Brother’s Imprisonment”
38. Tatsuo Ryusei Inouye, “Hunger Strike”
39. Bunichi KagawaGeta

Volunteers and the Draft

40. Minoru Masuda, “A Lonely and Personal Decision”
41. Tamotsu Shibutani, “The Activation of Company K”
42. Toshio Mori, “She Is My Mother, and I Am the Son Who Volunteered”
43. Jōji Nozawa, “Father of Volunteers”
44. Fuyo Tanagi and the Mothers Society of Minidoka, “Petition to President Roosevelt”
45. Yoshito Kuromiya, “Fair Play Committee”
46. Frank Emi and the Fair Play Committee, “We Hereby Refuse . . . In Order to Contest the Issue”
47. Eddie Yanagisako and Kenroku Sumida, “Song of Cheyenne”

Resegregation and Renunciation
     AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR LOSS OF UNITED STATES NATIONALITY UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES.
48. Noboru Shirai, “Wa Shoi Wa Shoi, the Emergence of the ‘Headband’ Group”
49. Motomu Akashi, “Badges of Honor”
50. Joe Kurihara, “Japs They Are, Citizens or Not”
51. Hiroshi Kashiwagi, “Starting from Loomis . . . Again”

PART III: AFTER CAMP
Introduction to Part III

Resettlement and Reconnection

52. James Takeda (as Bean Takeda), “The Year Is 2045”
53. David Mura, “Internment Camp Psychology”
54. Shizue Iwatsuki, “Returning Home”
55. Toyo Suyemoto, “Topaz, Utah”
56. Janice Mirikitani, “We, the Dangerous”
57. Amy Uyematsu, “December 7 Always Brings Christmas Early”
58. Brian Komei Dempster, “Your Hands Guide Me Through Trains”
59. Christine Kitano, “1942: In Response to Executive Order 9066, My Father, Sixteen, Takes”

Redress

60. Shosuke Sasaki and the Seattle Evacuation Redress Committee, “An Appeal for Action to Obtain Redress for the World War II Evacuation and Imprisonment of Japanese Americans”
PERSONAL JUSTICE DENIED, PART 2: RECOMMENDATIONS
61. William Minoru Hohri, “The Complaint”
62. Jeanne Sakata, “Coram Nobis Press Conference”
LETTER FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
63. traci kato- iriyama, “No Redress”

Repeating History

64. Perry Miyake, “Evacuation, the Sequel”
65. Fred Korematsu, “Do We Really Need to Relearn the Lessons of Japanese American Internment?”
66. Brandon Shimoda, “We Have Been Here Before”
67. Brynn Saito, “Theses on the Philosophy of History”
68. Frank Abe, Tamiko Nimura, Ross Ishikawa, Matt Sasaki, “Never Again Is Now”

Acknowledgments
Suggestions for Further Exploration
About the Authors
Credits and Copyright Notices

Five Events for the 2024 Day of Remembrance

Who knew when we started the Day of Remembrance that I’d still be talking about it 45 years later. Nevertheless, here we are, hitting the road for five DOR events in 2024. For further updates as the month progresses, check the Events page.
Continue reading Five Events for the 2024 Day of Remembrance

New animation puts drawings of “We Hereby Refuse” into motion

book coverAfter two years in the making, congratulations to Shannon Gee and her team at the Seattle Channel for producing this animation of the Jim Akutsu story from We Hereby Refuse.

The 14-minute video makes its cable-tv debut tonight at 7:00 pm as part of their award-winning “Community Stories” series. The animation very cleverly adds motion to the drawings of Ross Ishikawa in capturing just the first part of the Akutsu story from the arrest of his father up to the family’s arrival at the Puyallup Assembly Center, with a full rundown of the JACL collaboration that Jim detested.
Continue reading New animation puts drawings of “We Hereby Refuse” into motion

Project to translate and republish the literary magazines of Tule Lake

Tule Lake is the final frontier for the study of Japanese American incarceration. After 80 years, the Segregation Center at Tule Lake remains the least-understood and most-avoided subject in polite Japanese American society. And the fiction and poetry written by the Issei and Kibei Nisei during this tumultuous period and published in the camp’s literary magazines has languished unread by those who can’t read Japanese. A new project launched last month at the University of California at Berkeley promises to change that. Continue reading Project to translate and republish the literary magazines of Tule Lake

Evoking the Postwar Seattle Chinatown of John Okada

two buildings
A slide from the presentation of Dr. Marie Rose Wong

THERE ARE STORES on King Street, which is one block to the south of Jackson Street. Over the stores are hotels housed in ugly structures of brick more black than red with age and neglect. Continue reading Evoking the Postwar Seattle Chinatown of John Okada

From Page to Stage: Adapting NO-NO BOY for Today’s Theater

Photo: Elaine Ikoma Ko

Many thanks to Seattle Rep Literary Manager and Dramaturg Paul Adolphsen for so expertly leading the October 24 panel on our work to adapt John Okada’s No-No Boy for the theater. This was the second in the series of panels I’ve been curating for the Seattle Public Library on the occasion of the John Okada Centennial.
Continue reading From Page to Stage: Adapting NO-NO BOY for Today’s Theater

Full house for kickoff of the John Okada Centennial

John Okada never received the recognition he deserved in his lifetime. Since then, his work has earned him a place in world literature. I’d like to think Okada would have been pleased to see the turnout in his hometown on the occasion of his 100th birthday and the kickoff of the John Okada Centennial celebration.

audience Continue reading Full house for kickoff of the John Okada Centennial

New adaptation of “NO-NO BOY” workshopped at Seattle Rep

binderOne-hundred years ago today, John Okada was born in Seattle. It’s also a day on which I can finally reveal that I’m developing the script for a new theater adaption of Okada’s landmark novel, No-No Boy.

Desdemona Chiang
Noted stage directgor Desdemona Chiang

For four days this week I’ve had the privilege of working with the Seattle Rep, our flagship regional theater, under the auspices of “The Other Season,” its New Plays series. The Rep hired the brilliant theater director Desdemona Chiang to work with me and a talented cast of professional Equity actors. Under union rules we were not allowed to advertise or talk about the workshop until it was over. Continue reading New adaptation of “NO-NO BOY” workshopped at Seattle Rep

The Seattle Public Library celebrates the John Okada Centennial

John Okada © Yoshito Okada familyNovelist John Okada would have been 100 years old had he lived to September 22, 2023. To celebrate his legacy and honor his work in writing the great Japanese American novel, The Seattle Public Library has engaged me to curate a series of programs around the John Okada Centennial.
Continue reading The Seattle Public Library celebrates the John Okada Centennial

Coming May 2024: The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration

Floyd Cheung and I are pleased to announce that our new anthology, The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration, will be published as a Penguin Classic on May 14, 2024. You can now pre-order the book from your neighborhood independent bookstore, or from one of these online sellers.

cover of Penguin anthology

I am grateful to Floyd for inviting me on this journey six years ago. We kicked it around and settled on the narrative arc to frame the 68 selections in the volume.  While we wait for the chance for you to see it, please add it to your Goodreads queue and online wish lists. We will be arranging local book events next spring and summer. In the meantime, we’ve just revised the online metadata to better describe its content:

The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration – Paperback – May 14, 2024

The collective voice of Japanese Americans defined by a specific moment in time: the four years of World War II during which the US government expelled resident aliens and its own citizens from their homes and imprisoned 125,000 of them in American concentration camps, based solely upon the race they shared with a wartime enemy.

This anthology presents a new vision that recovers and reframes the literature produced by the people targeted by the actions of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress to deny Americans of Japanese ancestry any individual hearings or other due process after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. From nearly seventy selections of fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs, and letters emerges a shared story of the struggle to retain personal integrity in the face of increasing dehumanization – all anchored by the key government documents that incite the action.

The selections favor the pointed over the poignant, and the unknown over the familiar, with several new translations among previously unseen works that have been long overlooked on the shelf, buried in the archives, or languished unread in the Japanese language. The writings are presented chronologically so that readers can trace the continuum of events as the incarcerees experienced it.

The contributors span incarcerees, their children born in or soon after the camps, and their descendants who reflect on the long-term consequences of mass incarceration for themselves and the nation. Many of the voices are those of protest. Some are those of accommodation. All are authentic. Together they form an epic narrative with a singular vision of America’s past, one with disturbing resonances with the American present.