logo of Penguin Random House Audio with headphones over a book laid flat

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 (UPDATE: nine 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

One thought on “Audiobook and table of contents for Penguin anthology”

  1. I’m Very excited to know an audio version will be available! It has been an honor have my father’s watercolor painting on the book’s cover by authors Mr. Abe and Mr. Cheung and foresight of producer Denise Lee! …I know my dad would have appreciated the audio version.

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