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5 Stars...Buy (& Read!) This Book
This book was very well written, very accurate, and an overall excellent study into the subject.One of the few I recommend to friends.Author is sharp as a tack. ... Read more

Book Description
In 1942 U.S. military authorities, invoking a presidential order and an Act of Congress, forcibly evacuated over 110,000 persons of Japnese ancestry, most of them U/S. citizens, from their homes on the West Coast to what in fact were prison camps inland. The essays and articles in this volume explore this most extraordinary episode in American constitutional history. ... Read more

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Possibly a Greater Work the Justice at War
This book is exceptional in terms of quality.The essays in The Mass Internment vary by time.Some are from the 1940s, while others are contemoraneous to the books publication date.The actual articles are incredibly valuable to the internment scholar.Many books are excellent social histories of the event, but few aside from Peter Irons have chronicled the legal and politcal history of the internment in such as manner as the articles in this work.Utilizing vast amounts of government documents, in addition to other secondary sources, these articles succeed in present varying accounts of the intenment while maintaining a high level of excellence.Well worth the price. ... Read more

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Personality patterns and problems of adjustment in American Japanese intercultural marriages. ... Read more

Product Description
Cover of book is a reprint of a water color by Mrs. Moto Tani (1885-1988). Recipes were compiled as a fundraising effort to better services to the ever-growing Nikkei senior population in the East Bay. ... Read more

Book Description
This is the first collection of letters by a member of the legendary 442nd Combat Team, which served in Italy and France during World War II. Written to his wife by a medic serving with the segregated Japanese American unit, the letters describe a soldier's daily life.

Minoru Masuda was born and raised in Seattle. In 1939 he earned a master's degree in pharmacology and married Hana Koriyama. Two years later the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor, and Min and Hana were imprisoned along with thousands of other Japanese Americans. When the Army recruited in the relocation camp, Masuda chose to serve in the 442nd. In April 1944 the unit was shipped overseas. They fought in Italy and in France, where they liberated Bruyeres and rescued a "lost battalion" that had been cut off by the Germans. After the German surrender on May 3, 1945, Masuda was among the last of the original volunteers to leave Europe; he arrived home on New Year's Eve 1945.

Masuda's vivid and lively letters portray his surroundings, his daily activities, and the people he encountered. He describes Italian farmhouses, olive groves, and avenues of cypress trees; he writes of learning to play the ukulele with his "big, clumsy" fingers, and the nightly singing and bull sessions which continued throughout the war; he relates the plight of the Italians who scavenged the 442nd's garbage for food, and the mischief of French children who pelted the medics with snowballs.

Excerpts from the 442nd daily medical log provide context for the letters, and Hana interposes brief recollections of her experiences. The letters are accompanied by snapshots, a drawing made in the field, and three maps drawn by Masuda. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Mistakes on the Mistakes of History?
My husband and I gave my father-in-law, Noritsugu Uyeno, age 80, this book for Fathers Day (6/18/06) yesterday, and within 30 minutes he had found an error related to the Jerome, Arkansas internment camp.On page 232, the text states that there were no guard towers at Jerome, yet in contradiction to itself, on page 60, the book shows a photo of a guard tower at Jerome!My husband's parents were both imprisoned at Jerome, (where they met, actually), and they have the yearbooks and the reparations to prove it.According to them, not only were there guard towers at Jerome, but a Japanese American male was shot and killed there by the guards from the towers when he approached the fence too closely. Although this work contains some fascinating period photos and interesting encyclopedic information about a critically important historical subject, I wonder how many other errors it contains... However, if you do not own a variety of other sources that deal with this topic, the work could be implemented as a good overall introduction, especially for high-school aged people or for a general audience, as the book does contain evocative images and personality-focused aspects to it that many will find moving.However, fact-checking is recommended for any college-level or professional scholarly activities. ... Read more

Book Description
Confinement and Ethnicity documents in unprecedented detail the various facilities in which persons of Japanese descent living in the western United States were confined during World War II: the fifteen ìassembly centersî run by the U.S. Armyís Wartime Civil Control Administration, the ten "relocation centers" created by the War Relocation Authority, and the internment camps, penitentiaries, and other sites under the jurisdiction of the Justice and War Departments. Originally published as a report of the Western Archeological and Conservation Center of the National Park Service, it is now reissued in a corrected edition, with a new Foreword by Tetsuden Kashima, associate professor of American ethnic studies at the University of Washington.

Based on archival research, field visits, and interviews with former residents, Confinement and Ethnicity provides an overview of the architectural remnants, archeological features, and artifacts remaining at the various sites. Included are numerous maps, diagrams, charts, and photographs. Historic images of the sites and their inhabitants -- including several by Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams -- are combined with photographs of present-day settings, showing concrete foundations, fence posts, inmate-constructed drainage ditches, and foundations and parts of buildings, as well as inscriptions in Japanese and English written or scratched on walls and rocks. The result is a unique and poignant treasure house of information for former residents and their descendants, for Asian American and World War II historians, and for anyone interested in the facts about what the authors call these "sites of shame." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Getting it Right
Of all the current history books on the Asian American experience, Roger Daniels' book "Asian America" still stands out as the most scholarly, the best thought-out and the most clearly presented. While thisis not to deny the achievements of Asian American historians such as RonTakaki (whose "Strangers From a Different Shore", and "IronCages" remain classics), Daniels' book presents a more systematicaccount of the social and historical context for the Chinese and Japaneseexperience in the US.He has an undoubted talent for presenting historicaldata with rigor, sensitivity, and skill.

I recommend this volume to allmy students who are doing papers on Chinese or Japanese American topics,but it is also useful for anyone who wants to understand the development ofthe particular version of US race ideology during the late 19th andearly-mid 20th centuries.

Highly highly recommended

Great Book
I Used This Book On History Project. It Was Great. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

From immigration to discrimination and internment, and then to reparations and a high rate of intermarriage, Americans of Japanese descent share a long and sometimes painful history, and now fear their unique culture is being lost. Gil Asakawa's celebration of what makes JAs so special is an entertaining blend of facts and features, of recipes, songs, and memories that every JA will want to share with friends and family. Included are interviews with famous JAs and a look at how it's hip to be Japanese, from manga to martial arts, plus a section on Japantown communities and tips for JA's scrapbooking their families and traveling to Japan to rediscover their roots.

Gil Asakawa is a third-generation Japanese American, author of the weekly "Nikkei View" online column. He lives in Denver.

Customer Reviews (3)

I am Japanese American...
A fresh perspective on Japanese American culture with voices from multiple generations as well as mixed ethnicities (more realistic of America today!). The author moves towards why JAs are both Japanese and American and neither all at the same time. An excellent resource for anyone interested in AsianAmerican cultures as well as a superb guide for chronicling one's own family history.

A superb guide to avoiding breaches of tact around Japanese
Written by a third-generation Japanese American, being Japanese American: A JA Sourcebook for Nikkei, Hapa... & Their Friends is a straightforward introduction to the history of Japanese Americans, including the legacy of the American government's forced internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and basic Japanese culture, customs, and etiquette. An especial note reflects on the how the high rate of mixed-race marriage has and continues to affect the Japanese-American community. Being Japanese American a superb guide to avoiding breaches of tact around Japanese friends, family, or visitors, regardless of one's own ethnic heritage or background, and is also chock-full of helpful ways to embrace, preserve, and treasure one's cultural identity.

the ultimate "go-to" guide for all things Japanese-American
A wealth of knowledge and an amazing resource for anyone who wants to learn more about J-A culture and history.It's funny, hip, incredibly informative, and full of "I didn't know that!" details that will delight and surprise.If you've lost touch with your roots and want to rediscover them, this book is the perfect place to start. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent History. Excellent Read...
John Van Sant, a professor of Japanese History at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, has written an approachable and engaging look back at some of the very first Japanese travelers to the United States in the mid to late 1800s.

For the student of Asian-American History or Early Modern Asian Japanese History, Pacific Pioneers, is an invaluable reference that bridges the gap between the broad view of early Japan-U.S. interaction and the Japanese political reaction to it. Many of the popular books that deal with this area of history are concerned with its larger events such as the Perry and Iwakura Missions.

Van Sant's book is about individuals who came to a foreign land, and were instrumental in defining how the Western world viewed a recently opened island nation. Van Sant's scholarship is through and compiles a great deal of information that is often lost in the larger events of the period.Even those who aren't interested in Asian or Asian-American History can appreciate the people Van Sant has researched for their sense of wonder and discovery as some of the first to leave their homeland, which was closed off to nearly all foreign intercourse for over 200 years.

I find the book especially engaging because it examines how Americans reacted to their foreign visitors during a time when man of today's stereotypes about the Japanese culture had not been developed. Also, by examining the way in which the New World was viewed by the Japanese visitors, the reader can see how foreigners reacted to the Western world and found their culture to be exotic, captivating, and at times, frightening. The book is a revealing and honest look at how different cultures are viewed by people that were truly foreign to them.

A book I recommend for anyone who is interested in history on a very personal and revealing level.

A little-explored corner of American history
This is a truly absorbing read.Author John Van Sant casts light on a little-explored corner of American history about which, I'm willing to bet, few readers have any knowledge at all.Some may be vaguely aware that a handful of shipwrecked Japanese sailors fetched up on American shores in the first half of the nineteenth century or that large Japanese embassies toured this country in 1860 and 1871-72.But how many know that scores of Japanese students were living in such an unlikely place as New Brunswick, New Jersey in the late 1860s and 1870s, studying about American institutions as well as "big guns" and "big ships."Or that several young Japanese aristocrats--including a later titan of Meiji Japan--were holed up in a utopian commune, under the watchful eye of an eccentric guru, doing housework and tending grapevines?Or that other countrymen and women of less elevated status, fleeing worsening economic conditions back home, were scraping out a bare living in Hawaii and northern California?

In clear economic prose, thankfully free of academic jargon, Van Sant explores each of these expatriate communities in some depth.(Oddly enough, the author makes no mention whatsoever of the troupes of Japanese entertainers criss-crossing the country during this same period.Even Mark Twain complained bitterly in 1867 about having to compete with a company of Japanese acrobats for an audience.)He also does the historical record a considerable service by freeing some of these pioneers--the "mysterious" Wakamatsu Colony of Gold Hill, California being a prime example--from an encrustation of myth.If I have any quibble at all with Pacific Pioneers, it is that it is too short.Highly recommended!

A Must Read
I think that Dr Van Sant tells a compelling tale of the first wave of Japanese settlers who came to the United States and Hawaii. This book is for anybody who is interested in Asian American History. It should be the first book cracked open for any student who signs up to take any Asian studies class, either in the undergraduate or post-graduate world.I loved it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Gain insights into a unique American community
An excellent, insightful collection of American stories gleaned from oral histories of the small-town community of Hood River, Oregon.Tamura herself has family from this area.Her scholarly eye focuses on the early immigrants of Japanese ancestry from the early 1900s, whose pioneering spirit and ingenuity helped them to survive the travails of the 1900s, including the Great Depression and en masse incarceration during World War II.A must read, in my opinion, for anyone seeking to study about this period in American history.I must reveal my bias, as a descendant of two of the featured "isseis," in the book.I personally do not know the author, but learned that first generation members of our families were friends.I was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, but grew up visiting Hood River with family, and have seen this town change over the past 30 years.My family and I have found the book to be honest and revealing into my grandparents' lives.The book peers into the lives of the extended "issei" community, who are now all but gone in the year 2006, but live on through stories such as those found in this book. ... Read more