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
Category Archives: Heart Mountain
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:
Continue reading Now online: the Fair Play Committee files from the National Archives
Liz Cheney, a standing ovation, and a viral tweet
The returns are in, and as predicted, Rep. Liz Cheney was defeated in her Wyoming primary for standing up for the Constitution, democracy and the rule of law. But those are the values we share 
with her in light of the wartime incarceration, so for one brief, shining moment last month Liz Cheney was able to bask in a spontaneuous show of support from those of us attending the 2022 Heart Mountain Pilgrimage. Continue reading Liz Cheney, a standing ovation, and a viral tweet
REVIEW: “Interrogating the memoir of a resister”
Review of BEYOND THE BETRAYAL: The Memoir of a World War II Japanese American Draft Resister of Conscience by Yoshito Kuromiya, edited by Arthur A. Hansen.
University Press of Colorado. 234 pages. Hardcover, $34.95.
Reviewed by Frank Abe
Nichi Bei Weekly
July 21-August 3, 2022
Be sure to read the Endnotes to Yosh Kuromiya’s new posthumous memoir. They’re half the fun of reading this book.
Continue reading REVIEW: “Interrogating the memoir of a resister”
National Day of Remembrance tops February events
As the month for the annual Day of Remembrance, February is always the busiest time of year for speaking requests. This year being the 80th anniversary of EO 9066, A friend counted 33 DOR events nationwide. I have nine on the books myself, a personal record, including four on February 19th.
Continue reading National Day of Remembrance tops February events
First preview of our forthcoming anthology of camp literature
For three years, Floyd Cheung of Smith College and I have been gathering pieces and building the outline for a new anthology of camp literature commissioned by the publisher of Penguin Classics. On Sunday I presented a preview of our work on translations of Issei writing in camp in Japanese, part of what the late Yuji Ichioka called “our buried past.” This video screen is cued to the start of that discussion:
Continue reading First preview of our forthcoming anthology of camp literature
“Setsuko’s Secret” and Paul Tsuneishi’s fight for our film
The story of camp resistance is now recognized as part of our wartime experience, but a new book reminds us that it’s only been 20 years from a time when the subject was taboo.
Here’s how I describe Shirley Higuchi’s new book, Setsuko’s Secret: Heart Mountain and the Legacy of the Japanese American Incarceration, when given the chance to read an early version of it last year.
“A rich and original story. Shirley Higuchi captures the sweeping narrative of incarceration through the lens of a single camp and ties it to our present reality. Her resolve as a daughter of the camps is Setsuko’s real legacy.” — Frank Abe, director of Conscience and the Constitution
Continue reading “Setsuko’s Secret” and Paul Tsuneishi’s fight for our film
Interview with producers of new Densho podcast series
In two forthcoming books, I try to capture the epic arc of the camp experience — whether through the voices of characters in our graphic novel on camp resistance, or in the selections we choose for a new anthology of camp literature. Producers Hana and Noah Maruyama take much the same approach with their new Densho podcast series, which expertly weaves scores of sound bites into an aural tapestry to create the effect of a single voice conveying the shared experience of camp.
Campu is a remarkable feat of knowledge and editing. Listen to the first 48-minute episode, centered around “Rocks” as an object-based theme.
Continue reading Interview with producers of new Densho podcast series
Events coming up for the first half of 2019
Thanks to all who came to hear us speak in 2018. The schedule for the first half of 2019 is shaping up as an even busier one, with events for JOHN OKADA, CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION, and a look back at the first Day of Remembrance. For updates on this calendar, please always check the Upcoming Events page on the main menu. Continue reading Events coming up for the first half of 2019
“Resistance, Resettlement, and Redress”
I’m no lawyer, but I could not say no when the Case Western Reserve Law Review asked for a piece based on our EO9066 panel last November.
The symposium offered me the opportunity to revisit the McDonald Maternity Hospital in Cleveland where I was born, just a block from the Western Reserve campus, and explore my own pre-history of the postwar resettlement of my father out of Heart Mountain and into the Midwest. Continue reading “Resistance, Resettlement, and Redress”