Here is the most detailed story yet from my recent talks on the links between wartime incarceration and the scourge of ICE abductions. 
You should read the story by Kai Curry online at the Northwest Asian Weekly, but it conveys so much that’s important, and so much has changed since I first spoke on this in April, that I’ve shared it in full below. Thanks to the King County Library System and the Bellevue Library branch for centering We Hereby Refuse as their “One Bellevue, One Book.” Continue reading “One Bellevue, One Book:” the links between wartime incarceration and ICE abductions
Category Archives: Jim Akutsu
What Japanese American Wartime Incarceration Tells Us About Mass Deportation Today
Prepared remarks for a public talk presented April 22 at Wellesley College in the Pendleton Atrium. See below for video of an updated version presented in Oakland on June 22, 2025.
One year ago, when Elena Creef and I first discussed my speaking here, I never thought my talk would take such a dark turn. Then came the election. Elena asked me for a title for the program. By then, we knew the general direction things would take, but not the precise details. So this umbrella title seemed likely to stick by the time April 22nd rolled around.
Continue reading What Japanese American Wartime Incarceration Tells Us About Mass Deportation Today
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
Jonathan 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
New animation puts drawings of “We Hereby Refuse” into motion
After 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.
Continue reading Full house for kickoff of the John Okada Centennial
Resisters, Redress and John Okada On Display at Wing Luke Museum
A belated post to catch up on the October 14 opening of the RESISTERS: A Legacy of Movement From the Japanese American Incarceration at the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle. It’s certainly my kind of subject, so I’m grateful to Mikala Woodward and her team at the Wing for accepting some of my suggestions for display out of our discussions on the Citizens Advisory Committee. Some things pulled off my wall and bookshelf for this show, but keep reading to learn about one exceptional hidden gem in this exhibit.
The North American Post interview
In Seattle, the North American Post is the successor to the prewar Hokubei Jiji newspaper that Fuyo Tanagi helped edit, before she wrote the letter protesting the drafting of Nisei boys from camp for the Mothers Society of Minidoka. So it is an honor to be interviewed by Elaine Ikoma Ko in this wide-ranging exchange on No-No Boy, John Okada and We Hereby Refuse for the cover of the current issue of the Post.
Read the interview in the North American Post here.
Continue reading The North American Post interview
The Alien Enemy Hearing Boards at Fort Missoula
At this weekend’s education conference for the Japanese American Confinement Sites Consortium, we’ll get a virtual tour of the restored courtroom at Fort Missoula, and I’ll show how we used a transcript of a hearing inside that courtroom for a key scene in our graphic novel, We Hereby Refuse.
Continue reading The Alien Enemy Hearing Boards at Fort Missoula
The descendants of “WE HEREBY REFUSE”
Our graphic novel We Hereby Refuse weaves together the stories of three Nisei who refused to submit to imprisonment in American concentration camps without a fight. On Sept. 18 we got to meet three of their children and hear what they think about the book.