Category Archives: “We Hereby Refuse”

Asserting our history and defending civil liberties in 2025

On this date we’re in a strange transitional phase, preparing to defend democracy and civil liberties, books and libraries, history and knowledge and education, as they all come under concerted and coordinated attack in the four years to come. The example and literature of Japanese American resistance to wartime incarceration is more relevant than ever, and the script will continue to be written and rewritten to confront events as they unfold. Without question, we will look back at this time of relative peace and grace with nostalgia and a degree of anger at how we got here. However, we press forward, and here’s what’s on tap for the first half of 2025.
Continue reading Asserting our history and defending civil liberties in 2025

Excavating Stories and Unearthing History in Fall 2024

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.
Continue reading Excavating Stories and Unearthing History in Fall 2024

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

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

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

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

Finding the true location of the Tule Lake Stockade

Hiroshi holding photoThe Tule Lake Stockade was “an instrument of terror in camp. You could be arrested with no hearing and no charge, just picked up. You didn’t know who you could talk to safely, or what to say. If you were picked up, what you said was the reason. And whoever heard that might be the inu who informed on you. This created real paranoia in camp.”
Continue reading Finding the true location of the Tule Lake Stockade

Putting John Okada on the Seattle Literary Map

mapThanks to Seattle City of Literature, we’ve put John Okada on the map — the Seattle Literary Map

It’s with good reason that Seattle is one of two U.S. cities to be designated as a UNESCO City of Literature. Besides our active literary scene, it was the birthplace or home to some of America’s most notable writers, including the author of No-No BoyContinue reading Putting John Okada on the Seattle Literary Map

In Memoriam: Roger Daniels, the dean of incarceration camp history

We mourn the loss of the dean of Japanese American camp history. Roger Daniels passed away peacefully in Bellevue, Washington, on December 9, surrounded by family, a week after celebrating his 95th birthday.
Continue reading In Memoriam: Roger Daniels, the dean of incarceration camp history