Fall 2024 events

The weather is turning, and it appears to be time to hit the road again starting this weekend, mostly to promote the new Penguin anthology but also to meet continuing interest in the graphic novel and camp resistance in general. Here’s the list as it stands today of in-person and virtual speaking events for this fall, including serving as headliner for the Densho annual fundraiser. Check the Events page for further updates.

SALT LAKE CITY, UT
September 8-9, 2024
JAMP Topaz Pilgrimage

graphic— Sunday, Sept. 8, 11:00 am, at the Salt Lake City Public Library: Priscilla Ouchida and I will use the drawings by Ross Ishikawa for We Hereby Refuse to illustrate the personal story of Mitsuye Endo and her Supreme Court challenge. It was Priscilla’s personal conversations with Endo that informed the original story we were able to tell through the graphic novel form.

three authors— Monday, Sept. 9, 9:00 am at the Little America Hotel: In conversation with Nancy Ukai, I will present selections from The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration that represent the experience of camp at Topaz, including the telegram sent by the Topaz Residents Committee setting conditions before answering the loyalty questionnaire, and the poem by Iwao Kawakami on the shooting of James Wakasa. Followed by a pop-up bookshop and signing mounted by The King’s English Bookshop.

IDAHO
September 10-12, 2024
Friends of Minidoka
Nisei Trials: 80 Years” Distinguished Lecture series
— Twin Falls — College of Southern Idaho, Sept. 10, 2024, 6:00 pm
poster— Idaho Falls – Museum of Idaho, Sept. 11, 2024, 6:00 pm
— Boise – Idaho State Museum, Sept. 12, 2024, 6:00 pm

For the 80th anniversary of the Boise trials of the Minidoka draft resisters, Eric Muller and I will speak in conversation with Robyn Achilles at a series of presentations in Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, and Boise on “Resistance, Resilience, and the Ethics of Justice.” Free registration here.

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, WA
Saturday, September 14, 2024, 10:50-11:30 am
National Asians and Pacific Islander American Historic Preservation Forum
Bainbridge Island Rowing Center
“Making Monuments through Storytelling: Beyond the Barbed Wire”

graphic

I’ll help introduce Beyond the Barbed Wire: Japanese American Stories of the Pacific Northwest, a web-based project for Friends of Minidoka that combines narration, oral histories, and visual content into online tours that create virtual “monuments.” The first tour is Resisters of the Pacific Northwest, for which we’re incorporating the stories of Jim and Gene Akutsu, John Okada, and the first-ever Day of Remembrance at Puyallup. We’ll present at the new Bainbridge Island Rowing Center facility, ahead of a group tour of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial.

ONLINE EVENT
Wednesday, September 18, 2024, 11:15 am
Washington Attorney General’s Office CLE
“Never Again Is Now: Japanese American resistance to wartime incarceration and what it means to us today”

logoSpeaking via Zoom to assistant state attorneys general across the state of Washington on wartime incarceration, the law, and redress for a 60-minute Continuing Legal Education diversity program.

FRESNO, CA
Thursday, September 26, 2024, 12:00 pm
California State University, Fresno

Fresno State logoSpeaking about We Hereby Refuse virtually with students of Prof. Alison Mandaville as part of their lunchtime comics makers series. We’ll talk about the process of creating a documentary visual narrative in the form of a graphic novel.

LOS ANGELES, CA
Sunday, October 6, 2024, 9:00 am
Japanese American Confinement Sites Consortium education conference
“Uncovering Myths About Tule Lake”
Japanese American National Museum

logoAt this annual conference with our national community of thought leaders and experts, I will present The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration and show how we scaffolded the selections to run up to and contextualize the segregation and renunciation crises at Tule Lake.

SEATTLE, WA
Thursday, October 10, 2024, 5:30-7:00 pm PT
Densho annual virtual fundraiser
Unearthing History: Planting the Seeds for Densho’s Legacy

Join Densho for our 2024 Virtual Fundraiser! Tune in on October 10th from 5:30 – 7:00 PM PT for an evening of dialogue, shared learning, and reflection featuring as we dig deeper into our history and continue planting the seeds for a lasting legacy. You’re invited to listen in as we are joined by honored guests Frank Abe, Floyd Cheung, and Andrew Leong. Each of them offer unique insights into some of the lesser known stories they’ve brought to light through the process of translating, compiling and editing their new anthology The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration. This powerful anthology serves as a grounding reminder there are still aspects of this history we’ve yet to unearth. Register here.

LOS ANGELES, CA
Saturday, October 12, 2024, 2:00 pm
Los Angeles book launch
Japanese American National Museum

bannerFor the Los Angeles book launch of The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration, Floyd Cheung and I will be in conversation with Densho’s Brian Niiya. The program will also feature selections from the anthology read by some of the LA-based readers for our audiobook, including Keone Young, traci kato-kiriyama, and Ren Hanami. Free with museum admission, tickets here.

SAN DIEGO, CA
Sunday, October 13, 2024, 2:00-3:30 pm
San Diego book launch
San Diego Public Library
Shiley Special Events Suite

Central Library, 330 Park Blvd.

San Diego LogoJoin me downtown central San Diego Public Library for a discussion of The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration in conversation with UC San Diego Ethnic Studies Professor Christen Sasaki. This event is co-sponsored with the Japanese American Historical Society of San Diego. Audience Q&A will follow. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. Free registration here.

SACRAMENTO, CA
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society

Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society logoA joint program on reframing the story of Tule Lake with filmmaker Sharon Yamato showing her new film, “One Fighting Irishmen,” with me following up with the Tule Lake story in We Hereby Refuse and The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration.

SEATTLE, WA
Monday, October 21, 2024, 7:00 pm
Third Place Books, Seward Parkgraphic

An informal conversation with University of Washington professor Vince Schleitwiler around The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration.

REVIEW: “A Capstone Collection from a Beloved Historian”

Art Hansen
Photo by David Toshiyuki
audience watching Art
Photo by David Toshiyuki

“A Celebration of Art Hansen” was the centerpiece of the first-ever Nichi Bei Book Fest in San Francisco Japantown on July 27. Art and wife Debbie caught Covid from a cruise the week before so had to join us by Zoom in the Koho Co-Creative Space in the Peace Plaza, but it was still a celebratory event with stories told, tributes made, and city proclamations presented.  Continue reading REVIEW: “A Capstone Collection from a Beloved Historian”

INTERVIEW: Turning history into a graphic novel

book coverJonathan Sandler of London has written a graphic memoir about his Yorkshire grandfather’s WW2 service in the U.S. Army, The English GI. He also blogs at graphicmemoir.co.uk and from across the ocean discovered our work with We Hereby Refuse.

Jonathan sent over some thoughtful questions about the process of turning history from one’s personal heritage into a graphic novel. It took me several months to reply, but here finally are my answers.
Continue reading INTERVIEW: Turning history into a graphic novel

John Okada’s college year in Nebraska recalled at opening of historic Japanese Hall

exhibit display
Courtesy of Vickie Schaepler.

John Okada spent only three weeks with his family at the WRA camp in Minidoka, Idaho, before he was granted indefinite leave through the National Student Relocation Council to attend Scottsbluff Junior College in Nebraska. His year at Scottsbluff is now being recalled as part of a new display at today’s grand opening of the Japanese Hall and History Project at the Legacy of the Plains Museum in Gering, Nebraska.
Continue reading John Okada’s college year in Nebraska recalled at opening of historic Japanese Hall

Okada graffiti preserved at historic Nippon Kan Theater

The Okada signature survives! When I first came to Seattle in 1977, poet and playwright Garrett Hongo brought me backstage to the empty Nippon Kan Theater to show me a wall of graffiti with the name of a juvenile John Okada, painstaking inked into the stone. It was like touching a piece of history. Continue reading Okada graffiti preserved at historic Nippon Kan Theater

“The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration” published today as a Penguin Classic

cover of Penguin anthologyThe Literature of Japanese American Incarceration hits bookstore shelves today. You will finally be able to walk into a shop and buy a copy to take home. With their iconic black-and-white-and-orange covers, everyone has read or seen a Penguin Classic at some point in their lifetime. Whenever a character carries one in a movie, it’s a visual shorthand to signal the character is a scholar or book nerd. Continue reading “The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration” published today as a Penguin Classic

Video livestream: Three short films on the Heart Mountain resisters

May 11, 2024 will be the 22nd anniversary of National JACL’s apology in 2002 to what Paul Tsuneishi liked to call the “resisters of conscience.” To mark the occasion, Kimiko Marr and Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages are producing a video livestream this Tuesday, May 14th, at 5:00 pm PDT/ 8:00 pm EDT that I’ve agreed to host.  Continue reading Video livestream: Three short films on the Heart Mountain resisters

Mystery writers honor John Okada at Left Coast Crime convention

posterIn addition to the presentation of awards for best new mysteries, the writers and fans at the annual Left Coast Crime convention. also recognize a “Ghost of Honor,” someone who is no longer with us who inspires them. For their 2024 Seattle Shakedown convention in Bellevue, the writers and fans recognized novelist John Okada in his centennial year as their Ghost of Honor. Continue reading Mystery writers honor John Okada at Left Coast Crime convention

Now online: the Fair Play Committee files from the National Archives

This year we observe the 80th anniversary of the trial of 63 members of the Fair Play Committee at Heart Mountain for draft resistance, and the subsequent trial of the FPC steering committee for conspiracy to counsel draft evasion. Now, thanks to six years of work by staff of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, we are able to view online the personal WRA files kept on those members of the largest organized resistance to incarceration, the story documented in our PBS film, Conscience and the Constitution. You can see the files by opening the box below:

Heart Mountain Draft Resisters


Continue reading Now online: the Fair Play Committee files from the National Archives

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. Continue reading Audiobook and table of contents for Penguin anthology

The history and literature of Japanese American resistance to wartime incarceration