When Can We Go Back to America?
Voices of Japanese American Incarceration during WWII
-
- £4.99
-
- £4.99
Publisher Description
Four starred reviews!
A Kirkus Reviews Best YA Nonfiction of 2021
In this “riveting and indispensable” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) narrative history of Japanese Americans before, during, and after their World War II incarceration, Susan H. Kamei weaves together the voices of over 130 individuals who lived through this tragic episode, most of them as young adults.
It’s difficult to believe it happened here, in the Land of the Free: After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States government forcibly removed more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific Coast and imprisoned them in desolate detention camps until the end of World War II just because of their race.
In what Secretary Norman Y. Mineta describes as a “landmark book,” he and others who lived through this harrowing experience tell the story of their incarceration and the long-term impact of this dark period in American history. For the first time, why and how these tragic events took place are interwoven with more than 130 individual voices of those who were unconstitutionally incarcerated, many of them children and young adults.
Now more than ever, their words will resonate with readers who are confronting questions about racial identity, immigration, and citizenship, and what it means to be an American.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Beginning with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and extending to the Trump administration's discriminatory acts through 2019, activist, educator, and lawyer Kamei—who labored with Japanese American congressman Norman Y. Mineta and others in the 1970s–'80s redress movement—interweaves a personal framework, an impressive array of first-person stories (many from the public domain), and painstaking research to craft this authoritative, unblinking account of the incarceration of "approximately 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry" in the U.S. between 1942 and 1946. Kamei details how the mass incarceration was based on a blend of deeply rooted racism, deception, and outright greed, resulting in the notorious, euphemism-riddled 1942 Executive Order 9066 that forcibly removed and imprisoned citizens, who could take "only the things they could carry." Featuring affecting narratives covering the U.S. Army enlisting controversy; an engaging account of two units' combat prowess; and the U.S. court system, where Japanese American rights were being pursued in several landmark cases, Kamei's exhaustive work also provides an encyclopedic A-to-Z roster of more than 150 individual contributor biographies. At more than 700 pages, this is a truly remarkable, comprehensive resource with an emphasis on allyship, indispensable for researchers and any resistor of injustice. Back matter includes lists, a timeline, a glossary, contributor notes, excerpt permissions, and sources. Ages 12–up.
