Frank Abe & Ross Ishikawa

“Seattle Now & Then” at King Street Station

“Seattle Now & Then” is a long-time fixture of Seattle media created by historian and photographer Paul Dorpat in 1982. The column is now produced by historian and photographer Jean Sherrard, who published the feature below on our graphic novel in the Seattle Times, online on August 5, 2021, and in the Pacific NW Magazine of the print Times on August 8, 2021. Jean also posted a 12-minute audio interview with Frank Abe on YouTube, shared below.

Pacific Northwest Magazine spread in print

Personal stories of immigrants emphasize: “Empathy is the only thing that can bind us”

by Jean Sherrard
Special to The Seattle Times

This week we interview Frank Abe, author of the graphic novel We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration (Chin Music Press and the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, 2021), illustrated by Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki, and co-authored by Tamiko Nimura.

This powerful account of courage and confrontation offers compelling lessons for us today.

drawing of train tracks
THEN: In Ishikawa’s illustration of departure from King Street Station, detained immigrant husbands and fathers clutch paper sacks they were given to replace their confiscated suitcases. At right are the outstretched arms of wives and children screaming their goodbyes in Japanese and English.
Frank and Ross at King Street Station
NOW: Seattle writer Frank Abe (left), also a documentarian and ex-KIRO reporter, stands beside illustrator Ross Ishikawa, cartoonist and animator, on the King Street Station platform. (photo: Jean Sherrard)

Jean: When and where does this story begin?

Frank: It begins with the FBI arresting 150 immigrant leaders in Seattle in the hysteria following the start of World War II. The men were marched in the pre-dawn hours from the U.S. Immigration Detention Building to King Street Station, where The Seattle Times captured a photo of them on the platform boarding a train for the Department of Justice alien internment camp at Fort Missoula, Montana. When I first saw this photo, I knew it would be central to the story of Jim Akutsu, one of our three main characters.

Seattle Times photo, 1942

THEN: The Seattle Times photo of March 19, 1942, that inspired Abe and Ishikawa.


Jean
: Why a graphic novel?

Frank: It matches the epic sweep of a movie at a fraction of the production cost. I asked Ross to draw Jim’s mother as clawing through the bars and screaming to her husband after reading the description in the Times of “tear-stained eyes” and the din of “staccato chatter” in the morning air.

Jean: Your book takes an uncompromising view of systemic exclusion and racism.

Frank: Many fathers were separated from their families, who were themselves incarcerated at camps like Minidoka, Idaho. Jim and his brother Gene refused to be drafted until the government restored their citizenship rights, starting with their freedom. We emphasize that the government was responsible for targeting these families based solely on their race.

clock tower
THEN: Depiction of the King Street Station clock tower. (Ross Ishikawa)

Ross and Frank at clock tower of King Street Station
NOW: Illustrator Ross Ishikawa and writer Frank Abe at the clock tower of King Street Station. (photo: Jean Sherrard)

Jean: The storytelling has a documentary feel to it but also feels intensely personal.

Frank: Everything is drawn from the historical record. Readers can immerse themselves in the personal stories of our characters in a way that generates empathy. Empathy is the only thing that can bind us when the same elements of wartime fear and ignorance of the “other” survive to this day.

Jean: So the empathy signals a warning bell along with possible remedy?

Frank: Our book opens with the FBI knocking on the door to arrest Jim’s father. It ends with ICE breaking down the door to deport unwanted immigrants. In 1941, America feared a second attack from the Pacific. Just one year ago, we had a pandemic-era president dog-whistle “China virus” and “Kung flu,” received by some as permission to kick and punch Asian Americans on the street. Some things haven’t changed.

WEB EXTRAS

This week features a special 360 degree video of Jean’s 12-minute interview with Frank Abe at King Street Station. It includes select illustrations from We Hereby Refuse plus Frank’s reading from John Okada’s classic novel, No-No Boy. Not to be missed. (And if you’d prefer to hear just the audio of Frank’s chat with Jean, click right here!)

Jean Sherrard is a contributing writer and photographer for Now & Then. Check out Paul Dorpat and Jean Sherrard’s blog at pauldorpat.com for info on their award-winning book, “Seattle Now & Then: The Historic Hundred.” “Now” photographer Jean Sherrard shares his 360-degree videos at the YouTube channel Seattle Now & Then 360.

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