An unexpected blog post just arrived from our JOHN OKADA co-editor, Greg Robinson, on his theory of how Okada’s novel came to be published under the title of NO-NO BOY.
As I wrote in our book, John Okada never mentioned a prospective title for his novel in his query letter to publisher Charles Tuttle, in which he referred to his protagonist as Hajime, not Ichiro, nor did he in his follow-up letters. NO-NO BOY appears as the title for the first time in the book contract. Read Greg Robinson’s new blog post for his theory about why. Continue reading Demystifying Book Titles: Greg Robinson on the title for “No-No Boy”→
The violence against Asian Americans in Atlanta and across the nation is rooted, as many this week have pointed out, in a history of systemic exclusion and racism that includes the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans in WW2. It’s in this moment of heightened awareness that we confirm our graphic novel on that subject will be published on May 18.
Here’s a first look at the final book cover. The book will be published in paperback with front and back fold-in flaps.
We encourage purchases through your local independent bookseller. If there is none near you, the preferred online seller is Bookshop.org, which supports local bookstores.
Pre-orders are said to be strong. The book is being distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, with close to 1,000 from independent booksellers and online sources, so much so that the distributor contacted our publisher, Chin Music Press, to be sure to print enough copies in the first run. They’re being printed by a family-owned business in the U.S.
Columbia Magazine has just published an eight-page excerpt from the graphic novel as the cover story of its Spring 2021 issue. It’s a first for the venerable journal of the Washington State Historical Society, but a good fit given the material’s faithfulness to regional history.
Look for other advance coverage of our book release in the Sacramento Bee, South Seattle Emerald, International Examiner, Discover Nikkei, and the “APEX Express” radio magazine on KPFA-FM in Berkeley.
A number of virtual book events are now set for the rollout, with a continually updated list here. If you would like speakers for your group, please use this form to Contact Us.
SEATTLE, WA Friday, April 9, 1:30pm PDT Association for Asian American Studies virtual conference
Graphic novels open the door to alternative narratives from hitherto-marginalized communities, while increasing student engagement. For the panel, “Unsettling the Japanese American Narrative Through the Graphic Novel,” authors Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura will present excerpts from We Hereby Refuse that unsettle familiar victim narratives of Japanese American incarceration. Professors Caroline Hong of Queens College CUNY and Alison Mandaville of Cal State Fresno will analyze the work and place it within the larger field of counternarratives and resistance narratives in Asian American Studies.
SANTA CRUZ, CA Monday, May 24, 2021, 12:00 pm PDT UC Santa Cruz
Presenting We Hereby Refuse to Prof. Brenda Sanfilippo’s class on Contemporary American Literature.
LOS ANGELES, CA Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 9:30-10:45 am PDT UCLA Asian American Studies
Presenting We Hereby Refuse to Prof. Kelly Fong’s class on “The Asian American Movement,” with video streamed to the UCLA community. This program is co-sponsored by the George and Sakaye Aratani CARE Award, UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, and the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience.
SEATTLE, WA Monday, June 14, 2021, 6:00 am PDT
Seattle Public Library author series
Authors Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura and artist Ross Ishikawa debut We Hereby Refuse for Seattle library patrons. Co-sponsored by Densho and the Elliott Bay Book Company.
Frank Abe speaks to educators at both sessions of this NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Virtual Workshop on the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, our film Conscience and the Constitution, and our graphic novel We Hereby Refuse. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and hosted by the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.
Southern California book launch for We Hereby Refuse. Authors Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura will read from the graphic novel and describe the process of dramatizing a history that overturns the usual expectations around camp stories, with a special focus on segregation at Tule Lake. Artist Ross Ishikawa will share his use of 3-D modeling to recreate scenes from Japanese American history, and YURI Education Project creators will demonstrate a free online curriculum that accompanies the book. $10 and free for members. This program is co-sponsored by the George and Sakaye Aratani CARE Award, UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, and the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience.
Other programs are in the works. If you would like speakers for your group, please use this form to Contact Us.
When we staged the first Day of Remembrance 43 years ago, we had no idea how it would persist to become an invented tradition to be observed wherever Japanese Americans live. This year it’s a weekend more crowded than ever with five events at which I’ve been asked to speak. One consequence of pandemic isolation is the ability to be anywhere with Zoom, so I agreed to two events on Saturday and three on Sunday, covering all angles of resistance to wartime incarceration and the echoes to today:
A key scene in our graphic novel We Hereby Refuse takes place inside the U.S. Immigration Station, on the edge of Seattle’s Chinatown, where 100 immigrant Issei were held after their arrest by the FBI two months after Pearl Harbor. I’ll join the virtual tour as a guest speaker to show scenes from our book of the detention of Jim Akutsu’s father inside the Immigration Station, and also read from my father’s own memoir about his detention there in the 1930’s. Register here.
SEATTLE, WA Saturday, February 20, 2021, 2:00 pm PT Wing Luke Museum online book launch
Copies of our graphic novel won’t be ready for sale until March, but we’re going ahead with the Day of Remembrance launch of We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration. I’ll unpack how the structure of the book and its narrative arc upend the usual expectations around camp stories, Tamiko Nimura will read from a scene with her uncle Hiroshi Kashiwagi, and artists Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki will break down their process. To get the Zoom link to watch, you’ll need to register here.
In advance of a Day of Remembrance car caravan from the Puyallup Fairgrounds to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, I’ve recorded a video greeting that links the first Day of Remembrance at the fairgrounds in 1978 to the ongoing need to press for release of asylum-seekers still held at the GEO Group private prison operated on behalf of ICE. “Another Time, Another Place” is sponsored by Tsuru for Solidarity, La Resistencia, Densho, the Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee, Seattle JACL, and Puyallup Valley JACL.
A Twin Cities coalition is screening Conscience and the Constitution for its Day of Remembrance, after which I’ll join an online discussion with Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and Japanese American and Muslim students from the University of Minnesota. Moderated by Twin Cities JACL chapter president Vinicius Taguchi.
Saving the fun one for last: I was a featured actor in the 1976 TV-movie, Farewell to Manzanar, and was prevailed upon by publisher Kenji Taguma to organize and moderate a virtual cast and crew reunion prior to the COVID-safe screening of the film at a San Jose drive-in theater. We just recorded the Zoom gathering and those in their cars at the screening will hear some truly great stories. It’s sponsored by the Nichi Bei Foundation as the closing night event of its 10th anniversary Films of Remembrance series. Read the Nichi Bei Weekly article about it.
Then when I opened Greg’s book I was floored to discover not one but two chapters devoted to the author of No-No Boy: Greg’s essay on the reviews of the novel upon its first publication in 1957 (previously published by Discover Nikkei), and a new section on the origins of our own 2018 collaboration, together with Floyd Cheung, in a piece called “How John Okada Was Born.” Continue reading How “JOHN OKADA” was born→
An image by Ross Ishikawa from the forthcoming graphic novel seems a fitting way to close out the year, a year as difficult for us as it was for Jim Akutsu trudging through the snow at Minidoka in his second winter in camp.
“Three voices … Three acts of defiance … One mass injustice.” That’s one of the taglines for our forthcoming graphic novel which presents an original vision of America’s past with disturbing links to the American present. We had a fast-moving conversation about it on Black Friday, with a special look inside the 3-D modeling by one of our two artists, Ross Ishikawa, to recreate key scenes based on historical reality.
Here’s the one-hour JAMP YouTube channel event moderated by Erin Aoyama, to get you ready for publication on February 9, 2021.
The story of camp resistance is now recognized as part of our wartime experience, but a new book reminds us that it’s only been 20 years from a time when the subject was taboo.
“A rich and original story. Shirley Higuchi captures the sweeping narrative of incarceration through the lens of a single camp and ties it to our present reality. Her resolve as a daughter of the camps is Setsuko’s real legacy.” — Frank Abe, director of Conscience and the Constitution
In two forthcoming books, I try to capture the epic arc of the camp experience — whether through the voices of characters in our graphic novel on camp resistance, or in the selections we choose for a new anthology of camp literature. Producers Hana and Noah Maruyama take much the same approach with their new Densho podcast series, which expertly weaves scores of sound bites into an aural tapestry to create the effect of a single voice conveying the shared experience of camp.
Campuis a remarkable feat of knowledge and editing. Listen to the first 48-minute episode, centered around “Rocks” as an object-based theme.
Our graphic novel on Japanese American resistance to wartime incarceration, WE HEREBY REFUSE, is not due for publication until February — but when doing a project like this, you can’t pass up the opportunity when asked to be part of a panel titled, “Japanese American Voices in Graphic Novels.”
UPDATE October 27: Here is the YouTube program, cued to start with our 5-minute debut of the artwork and story, followed by the panel moderated by librarian Jessica Buck and featuring Mari Nomi, Sarah Kuhn, Kiku Hughes, and Yuko Ota. [The screen is blank but the video does play.]
An unexpected blog post just arrived from our JOHN OKADA co-editor, Greg Robinson, on his theory of how Okada’s novel came to be published under the title of NO-NO BOY.
