Product Description
A stirring account of Japanese Americans in World War II, based mainly on diaries, autobiographies, and the military records of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was known as the Purple Heart Battalion because of its bravery. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, all people on the West Coast of Japanese heritage, whether resident aliens or citizens, were forced to move into internment camps. But 1,200 young men from the camps, along with 10,000 other GIs of Japanese heritage, became some of the most decorated soldiers in the war as part of the 442nd. Author Michel L. Cooper tells of the remarkable bravery of these Nisei soldiers, whose heroism in battles in Europe contrasted with the prejudice that Japanese Americans faced at home. Chronology, end notes, suggestions for further research, index. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Valuable lessons
I got my son this book as part of required reading for school.He found it informative and moderately interesting, reading it in about 2 days easily.Most of it is about the wartime service of Japanese Americans, and it also addresses the mistreatment they received in the states.I hope he can apply lessons learned about discrimination later in life.

Fighting for Honor:Japanese Americans and World War II
Michael Cooper's book "Fighting for Honor" provides insight into the treatment of Japanese Americans before, during and after World War II.The status and treatment of Asians in the U.S. and especially on the West coast is discussed in the early portion of the book.As for other portions of the book, this should be educational for children not familiar with the history of that time.Mr. Cooper does an excellent job in describing the resettlement of Japanese Americans at the beginning of the war along with a map showing the War Relocation Authority Camps. Throughout the book, Mr. Cooper attemps to describe the thinking and mood of the Japanese Americans.There are good examples of the exploits of Japanese American soldiers fighting for the U.S. during the war and a sad chapter describing the welcome the troops received after returning from the war.Throughout the book there are very good photographs illustrating the subject being discussed.This is an excellent history book for children describing the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. ... Read more

Product Description
Nisei Memories is an extraordinarily moving account of two second-generation Japanese Americans who were demonized as threats to national security during World War II. Based on Paul Takemoto’s interviews with his parents, in which they finally divulge their past, Nisei Memories follows their lives before, during, and after the war -- his father serving his country, his mother imprisoned by it.

At the start of the war, twenty-one-year-old Kaname (Ken) Takemoto was a sophomore at the University of Hawaii. Although classified as an "enemy alien," he served in the army, first as a Varsity Victory Volunteer and then as a combat medic with the 100th Battalion /442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy.

Fifteen-year-old Alice Setsuko Imamoto was attending high school in California when the war began. Soon after, her father and mother were both imprisoned. She and her three sisters were sent to an assembly center in Santa Anita, and eventually the family was reunited at a relocation camp in Jerome, Arkansas. She was finally released to attend Oberlin College on a music scholarship.

Like so many others, Ken and Alice had never spoken of their experiences, which, as their son explains, "loomed as backdrops to our lives, but until now were never discussed." While his father had relived his wartime experiences over and over in his mind, his mother blocked many of hers from memory. Takemoto fills in some of the gaps with information gleaned from correspondence and documents. Of unusual power and appeal, the interviews lead readers through the half century of uncertainty and trauma endured by the family before it was able to confront issues central to its existence. They tell a story of perseverance and forgiveness and, ultimately, pride. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Nisei Memories
Paul Howard Takemoto made a very moving account of his parents treatment during WWII.He used interviews of both parents to tell their story.Interesting to read as well as an excellent account of America's treatment of the Japanese Americans during the war. I hope we learn from it.

Not the Brightest Time in America's History
The forced movement of thousands of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast of the United States to camps inside the country is not one of America's better moments. At a political level the arguments are still raging. A group of activists have succeeded in getting not only an official apology but a cash payment. On the other side, there are reports that the recently declassified Magic intercepts confirm that there was an active spy ring operating in the West Coast Ports. I frankly don't know.

This book, however, is not on the larger political aspects. It is on the personal issues of two people, the author's parents. They were stripped of their property, sent to camps, and generally deprived of the rights we expect as citizens. Their stories match those of several people I have known.

The stories of his father in the 442 Regimental Combat Team have particular meaning to me as I have met several veterans of the 442. All had been wounded in action. ... Read more

Product Description
The first Japanese immigrants left overcrowded villages to work the railroads, mines, and farms of North America. An enlightening account features the Chinese Exclusion Act which opened the door to the Japanese, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, WWII internment camps, and cultural traditions and festivals still celebrated today. ... Read more

Product Description
Rich in primary sources and featuring contributions from scholars on both sides of the Pacific, "Issei Buddhism in the Americas" upends boundaries and categories that have tied Buddhism to Asia and illuminates the social and spiritual role that the religion has played in the Americas. While Buddhists in Japan had long described the migration of the religion as travelling from India, across Asia, and ending in Japan, this collection details the movement of Buddhism across the Pacific to the Americas. Leading the way were pioneering, first-generation Issei priests and their followers who established temples, shared Buddhist teachings, and converted non-Buddhists in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book explores these pioneering efforts in the context of Japanese diasporic communities and immigration history and the early history of Buddhism in the Americas. The result is a dramatic exploration of the history of Asian immigrant religion that encompasses such topics as Japanese language instruction in Hawaiian schools, the Japanese Canadian community in British Columbia, the roles of Buddhist song culture, Tenriyko ministers in America, and Zen Buddhism in Brazil. ... Read more

Product Description
Following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s declaration of war on Japan, the U.S. War Department allowed up to five hundred second-generation, or "Nisei," Japanese American women to enlist in the Women’s Army Corps and, in smaller numbers, in the Army Medical Corps.

Through in-depth interviews with surviving Nisei women who served, Brenda L. Moore provides fascinating firsthand accounts of their experiences. Interested primarily in shedding light on the experiences of Nisei women during the war, the author argues for the relevance of these experiences to larger questions of American race relations and views on gender and their intersections, particularly in the country’s highly charged wartime atmosphere. Uncovering a page in American history that has been obscured, Moore adds nuance to our understanding of the situation of Japanese Americans during the war. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

This Book Of Poems Is The BEST
(Im Using My Mom's Amazon Account to write this reveiw)
:D James Mitsui Is actually my grandpa :)
(my mom is his daughter)
umm yea!
you should buy my grandpa's book, its seriosly the awsomest!
(idk i coulod probly get some signed copies if ya'll want)
umm yea
..
Buy My Grandpa's Book!
You'll Lie It :)

Truly a Wonderful Collection of Poems
From a Three Cornered World takes poems from Jim Mitsui's three previousbooks and adds them to three sections of new poems. Jim Mitsui, is ofcourse of Japanese descent, but the poet is also a Washington state poet,and an American poet. From the beginning, Mitsui showscareful attentionto the things which influence his life. Jim Mitsui takes the reader on aguided tour of his family and his wonderfully rich view of the world.Thereader sees the author's world from a multitude of perspectives rangingfrom childhood to career to friendships to love. Add to this that the poethas a magnificent sense of personal history, that is a personal perspectiveof history, and you cannot go wrong. Being fortunate enough to listen toMitsui both read and talk about his poetry, I have come away with a sensethat he wants me to discover rather than be told what to expect from thesepoems.Often influenced by paintings and the wonderful minutia of everydaylife, I find myself reading his poem, "Rationale," again andagain.The two line ars poetica is as powerful as that of Neruda.Quitesimply, this is a fascinating collection of poetry of which I shall nevertire. ... Read more

Product Description
Compelling history of three generations of Japanese American women, tracing their story from early immigration in the 1890s, on through the WW II American war camp experience to the present day. Combining historical data and personal narratives, Nakano penetrates their unique culture and shows how each generation survived, and how legacies passed on enabled the present generation to thrive. ... Read more

Product Description
Illustrated with black-and-white photographs. Young Shi Nomura was among the

120,000 American citizens who lost everything when he was sent by the U.S.

government to Manzanar, an interment camp in the California desert, simply

because he was of Japanese ancestry. "In clear and fascinating prose, Stanley

has set forth the compelling story of one of America's darkest times--the

internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.His meticulously

researched volume is accompanied by numerous, fine period black-and-white

photographs...This eloquent account of the disastrous results of racial

prejudice stands as a reminder to us in today's pluralistic society."

--School Library Journal (starred)




... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A cautionary tale for children as well as adults
A balanced and gently stated explanation of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.Intended for young children (age 8 and up) but appropriate for an older audience.90 pages, illustrated with photographs, published 1994.

Particularly illuminating and helpful, this brief text discusses the various feelings of the people who were interned during the war, as well as the context of their community involvement before, during, and after the conflict, by tracing the specific story of Shi Nomura.

Japanese Americans who were living in the mainland US were required to leave their real and personal property, their communities and their friends, their businesses and their professions, their schools and their places of worship, to be detained in the internment camps.Their property was confiscated, their citizenship revoked.Many thousands of American citizens were discharged from the US military and labeled "enemy combatants," despite their US citizenship and worthy service records.Yet not even one Japanese American person was ever found guilty of disloyalty to the US or of war crimes of any sort.To the contrary, many youth volunteered from within the camps to serve their nation through the 100th battalion and the segregated 442nd infantry division.The 442nd division lived up to its motto, "Go for broke!" by becoming the most highly decorated unit ever in US history.Translation services provided by military intelligence in the 100th battalion -- highly educated Americans usually of Japanese ethnicity -- enabled the US to understand and act upon intercepted foreign messages.

Sharing these stories -- the stories of fellow Americans' struggle to prove their loyalty to their own country -- is a way to honor them, their sacrifices, and their contributions.Going forward with this understanding, perhaps we will be better able to avoid treating other Americans of any ethnicity with such unwarranted discriminatory action.

Highly recommended.

How Could It Happen?
This book tells us how it could happen.Japanese-Americans were the subject of constant pressure and segregation in Hawaii and California as well as the rest of the United States.Apparently the Japanese were excellent farmers and the whites were no competition for their success so laws were passed, no male immigrants, no female immigrants, no citizenship, citizenship doesn't really matter, etc.The story is pretty stunning and it really covers how the idea of internment could happen.Hate a group of people, refuse them the right to assimilate and then send them off without rights when there is an excuse to do so.I think it could happen again.It would be better if it didn't though.

THEY DESERVE BETTER
I read this boook because I had a history project all about Japanese Internment.Before I read this book I thought Japanese Interment was only about the Japanese in some camps.I didn't realize the injustice that weset upon these noble and great people.After reading this book I feltenraged at how the Japanese would have to sell or burn their beautiful andvaluble items.I think they deserve so much more than a letter from thePresident.We should have a much better tribute toward them. I have alwaysbeen proud of living in such a great state such as California, but I am notproud that they were the least tolerant of the Japanese.

Dear Fellow Adolescents,
In this book called I Am An American that I read is a really good book because it is for the kids at the reading level of 9-12 (ages to). If you wanted to know the story. Well in the story their is a yough boy and hisfamily that were intered with others. Also in this story is based one atrue one, it is almost like a biography. As I was thinking about this storyI realized that is was a very educational it makes you think about theworld itself. When I was reading some other reviews I saw one and it caughtmy attention and I had to write about it. It was about a girl who hadexperienced what went on in the book. As I was reading on in this review itsaid that the girl and her family were interned too, just like the boy inthe girl in the review. The girl's name that was interned with her familywas Shi Nomura. I think being interned is like you having to pack up all ofyour things and then moving out of the place where you were and then neverreturning. I think that is just like being interned because you can nevergo back. And then I started to read another review and it mentioned thatthis whole thing happened during World War II, and that was one of theworst wars that went on in the world years ago. They said that Japan andmany other countries were over world order. "Freedom has a Tousandcharms to show". I used this because the people that were internedprobably thought that they were going to be free because it makes it seemlike they were going to be free but they weren't, going to be free at all.I think that it was a good book because it tells how badly people weretreated, it had said that it was a good book. Some people may say that itwas not a good book because it might make kids think that when they grow upthey will be treated that way. It also might make it seem that this isstill going on. It also might make teens think that the world around themis unfair to different people (races). Then it might make teens feel thatsome people in the world are disrespectful to different people (races), andshould be respect to them no matter what race the people are. And it couldmake them think that people have no kind of respect for others and insteadof being mean to them. It is a good book however kids can read it, get aneducational idea of their life and the world that surrounds it. I Am AnAmerican can get a teen or a child to start reading at the reading level of9-12. If you by this book then you will enjoy reading it because it willtell you what went on in the world back then instead of now. If you readthis book now you will think that "Life isn't the same".

Your Fellow Adolescent,Shanti Lipscomb ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (9)

no title
Like Mr. Muller, I had always assumed that all of the Japanese-American soldiers in WWII were volunteers. I was shocked and saddened to discover that after the government insinuated that not only Japanese immigrants but native born Americans of Japanese descent were not "truly" American; the same people would force them to fight for the country that had so wholly ignored their rights not only as citizens but as humans.

There is a definite sympathetic tone throughout the whole book that some people might call "slanted," but I have yet to read a book about historical accounts that does not spend the majority of it's time supporting the author's views.

However, any reader worried the author's passion may contaminate the authenticity of this book should rest assured that it is written in a professional manner. The only point in this book that displays Mr. Muller's personal feelings is a brief forward. Otherwise the book is written purely from the internee's points of view, most especially those who later resisted the draft. All of the author's research -- including quotes and many of the Japanese-American's personal feelings -- are documented in an extensive bibliography.

My only complaint about this book is that the author continuously refers to the different Japanese-American generations by the terms common to that period.(i.e. "Nisei" was a referral to native born citizens and their immigrant parents were called "Issei.") Not only were the many terms confusing, but I found the action pointless, and offensive.

If you are interested in the biography of Japanese-Americans, WWII, or history in general this book is worth reading.

Loyalty and patrotism redefined
This book is typical of the many modern historical re-interpretations of the evacuation and relocation of the people of Japanese ancestry during WWII.

Prominent features among these writers is that the centers were prisons, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards with guns pointed at the inhabitants who were living under horrendously grim conditions of "incarceration" only because they happened to be of the Japanese race. Muller states their plight "among this country's most shameful and egregious human rights violations."

The main premises of the book are as follows:

1. The Nisei draft resisters were just as "patriotic and courageous" as their fellow Nisei among the 100th and 442nd who died or were wounded.

2. The Japanese American Citizens League was against these resisters when they should have supported them. The JACL has since supposedly accepted them.

3. The resisters proved the inconsistency -- indeed, the injustice -- of the US Government's policy regarding their evacuation and relocation.

4. The loyalty questionnaire was unnecessary and therefore harmed relationships and caused divisions.

5. The US Govt. and WRA were wrong to draft the Nisei who were "imprisoned" in "internment camps."

6. The resisters may have been right, they may have been wrong. At any rate, everyone needs to be OK about it and no more hard feelings, please.

If you are a member of or a veteran of the US armed forces, this book will definitely anger you. No doubt it has angered many Japanese Americans.

When your country asks too much of you:
I heard about this book in a seminar in Seattle on Japanese-American internees during WWII.I immediately wanted to get it.Some hint about Japanese-American CO's, who were imprisoned just near Seattle, along with Quakers?I had to find out!

This is a well researched book, copiously footnoted, with extensive primary and secondary sources.Better yet, Muller is a good author.Don't always get that with a good research non-fiction work.He had me interested, wanting to find out more, hating to put the book down.Muller doesn't simply come off as a bleeding-heart- he dispassionately relates the experiences of the Japanese-Americans, and critiques their actions, with both positive and negative assessments.Yet he manages to bring out in the end how atrocious the actions were of our government- to take people, strip them of their rights, deny them their basic rights as citizens, and then call them to kill others, on the basis that they *are* citizens. He tells the story of how they came to be in the camps, how the decisions were made to put them in the draft (assisted greatly by the JACO, 2nd generation Japanese who were willing to sell out their own people in order to gain more respect from the American government), how and why some chose to resist, and the long struggle that came from the results of those actions, leading up to the present day.

There was one most excellent quote in the book.One judge, after the internment camps are disbanded, writes how the constitution should guarantee basic rights to everyone in our land- regardless of if they are citizens or not.The parallels between the experiences of the Japanese-Americans in WWII and those of another ethnicity today are chilling.

Honoring their resistance preserves our freedoms
The Japanese American draft resisters responded to Pearl Harbor not with an ultra-nationalism for the America that had treated them and their families so unjustly, but with a principled insistence on America's higher ideals.By vindicating that choice, Professor Muller's work helps to preserve for all of us the same choice of responses in the wake of 9/11.For many Americans, especially Asian Americans and Arab Americans, waving the flag today combines and conflates a message of patriotism with a historically well-founded fear that we will be counted as less than fully American when America, the one and only nation we love and call home, faces a time of crisis.In the face of these conflated meanings, it is only with a free conscience that an American can ever hope to invest a choice to dedicate his life to his country with the meaning he intends.The resisters remind us that in a time of national crisis, the freedom of conscience is the most precious freedom of all.

Excellent contrib to Amer. history and profiles of courage
We know about the 120,000 Americans of Japanese heritage who were imprisoned and interned in ten concentration camps in the USA during WWII "By Order of President" Roosevelt and the Army, in places like Tule Lake, Heart Mountain, and Minidoka.We know about the young men, the Nisei, who served their country with distinction in the 100th Battalion and 442nd regimental combat team in Italy and Europe, while their families were stripped of their civil rights and property.But what about those young men who resisted their draft order since they had no civil rights?What of those who were imprisoned and never pardoned after the war?In hindsight, weren't they just as courageous?What about the courage of Federal Judge Louis Goodman?The author of this book, himself the son of a refugee, the grandson of a man who was sent briefly to Buchenwald from Frankfurt, and was tagged an enemy alien in the USA, has written this excellent, well researched book that will be an excellent resource to students of U.S. history and the fight for civil liberties. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Addresses the fact the threat was real.
While Hayashi is critical of the evacuation saying "despite the obvious presence of Japanese nationalistic sentiments before and during the camps, since people cannot and should not be locked up on the basis of political sentiment but rather on the basis of acts committed." - at least he acknowledges the threat of Japanese nationalism.

As for the first reviewer, his history is just plain wrong.

1. Internees included 10,995 Germans, 16, 849 Japanese (5,589 who voluntarily renounced U.S. citizenship and became enemy aliens), 3,278 Italians, 52 Hungarians, 25 Romanians, 5 Bulgarians, and 161 classified as "other".Only a small fraction of enemy aliens were interned. Japanese citizens with families were sent to Crystal City, Texas and lived side-by-side with German and Italian families.

It should be noted that all 16,849 Japanese enemy-aliens including the 5,589 that renounced American citizenship were eligible for an apology from the United States and a $20,000 reparations payment while the Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Romanians and Bulgarians received nothing.

German Americans on the east coast and throughout the country were arrested, interned, and in some cases deported. Almost 11,000 German Americans were interned in the U.S. during World War II. Many German Americans sat, worked, played and went to school in the same camps as their Japanese American counterparts.

Furthermore even before the first person was interned, 600,000 Italian Americans and 300,000 German Americans were deprived of their civil liberties when they (all persons, male and female, age 14 and older) were required to register as "Alien Enemies." This registration entailed photographing, fingerprinting and the issuance of identification cards which the Alien Enemies had to have on their possession at all times. In addition they were forbidden to fly; to leave their neighborhoods; to possess cameras, short-wave radio receivers, and firearms. Finally, these persons were required to report any change of employment or address to the Department of Justice.

2. According to the 1940 census, ethnic Japanese made up 40% of the population of Hawaii. In California, the population was 1.6%. Military authorities had considered moving all ethnic Japanese to Molokai or the West Coast but moving 40% of the population was logistically and indeed financially impossible. That said, there was an internment camp in Hawaii at Sand Harbor. More importantly, Hawaii was under military martial law at the time.

If the the authorities could have evacuated all ethnic Japanese from Hawaii they would have. They could not so they did not.

As an aside, Japan had a battle plan in place for the invasion of Hawaii that intended to utilize ethnic Japanese during the occupation. The plan was scrapped after Japan's defeat at Midway.

3.It is more accurate to say that no Japanese Americans were charged or found guilty of such crimes during the war. Those suspected were simply sent to internment -- not relocation -- camps. For example, in Hawaii, three Japanese Americans on Niihau aided a downed Imperial Navy aviator to the point where they attempted to kill some of their Hawaiian neighbors. One of the Japanese was killed in a struggle and the other two surrendered to authorities. (This "Niihau Incident" is considered the trigger that largely justified the relocation order.)

In another case, AJA Richard Kotoshirodo actively aided Japanese spies keeping track of ship movements in Pearl Harbor. Until martial law, however, watching ships from public property was not a crime. Another AJA was shot in Kaneohe when he fled after being discovered signaling a Japanese submarine.

The last American convicted of treason was a Japanese American, Tom Kawakita. Iva Tokuri D'Aqino also aided Japan rather than be sent to a civilian internment camp in Japan along with her fellow Americans. Japanese American women assisted in the escape of German POWs from a POW camp in the American Southwest during the war....

Americans need to study this history a little more thoroughly. Hayashi has the integrity to be honest at least.

A New View in a Shameful time of American History
I first heard of the incarceration of the Japanese-Americans from a friend in Utah. While still a teenager, he and his family who were living in Seattle were given 48 hours to sell their home and business and were moved into a cencentration camp. He lived in the camp until he was 18, at which time he was drafted into the Army. They took one look at him in the Army and said, You're going to be a Japanese interpreter. His reply, Man, I'm third generation American, I don't speak a word of Japanese. His brother enlisted in the Army to get out of the camp and was a member of the famous 442 Regimental Combat Team fighting in Italy where he was severly wounded.

This was one of the more disgraceful acts of our Government. There was not any movement to move Americans of German or Italian descent into camps. The Japanese Americans on Hawaii were not affected, only those on the west coast of the mainland. And there was never a case of spying by the Japanese Americans.

This splendid book brings a new level of research and understanding to thie shameful time in our history. ... Read more

Product Description
With a low rate of immigration and a high rate of interracial marriage, Japanese Americans today compose the Asian ethnic group with the largest proportion of mixed-race members. Within Japanese American communities, increased participation by mixed-race members, along with concerns about overassimilation, has led to a search for cultural authenticity, giving new answers to the question, Who is Japanese American?In Pure Beauty, Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain tackles this question by studying a cultural institution: Japanese American community beauty pageants in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Honolulu. King-O’Riain employs rich ethnographic fieldwork to discover how these pageants seek to maintain racial and ethnic purity amid shifting notions of cultural identity. She uses revealing in-depth interviews with candidates, queens, and community members, her experiences as a pageant committee member, and archival research—including Japanese and English newspapers, museum collections, private photo albums, and mementos—to establish both the importance and impossibility of racial purity. King-O’Riain examines racial eligibility rules and tests, which encompass not only ancestry but also residency, community service, and culture, and traces the history of pageants throughout the United States. Pure Beauty shows how racial and gendered meanings are enacted through the pageants, and reveals their impact on Japanese American men, women, and children. King-O’Riain concludes that the mixed-race challenge to racial understandings of Japanese Americanness does not necessarily mean an end to race as we know it and asserts that race is work—created and re-created in a social context. Ultimately, she determines that the concept of race, fragile though it may be, is still one of the categories by which Japanese Americans are judged.Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain is lecturer in sociology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Who knew? A wide world of issues in ethnic beauty pageants
Disclaimer: the author is a personal friend. I was only dimly aware of this aspect of her work before I read this book; my eyes were OPENED by "Pure Beauty", and in a good way.

I never took sociology at school, and while I agree, heartily with the dictum, "I am a man, and whatever concerns humanity is of interest to me", I'm generally not one to read sociology textbooks (which is how "Pure Beauty" scans to me) for pleasure!

Yet pleased I was to take in the myriad details and interesting analysis of Dr. King's fieldwork as a beauty pageant volunteer, and later judge.I was fascinated by the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, multi-culturalism, identity, feminism, economics, exploitation and growth young Japanese-American women lived and explored as they sought to be crowned "Nisei Week" or "Cherry Blossom" Queen.

I think some of the repetition noted by an earlier reviewer is due to the what I perceive as the structure of the book as a college level text, which would often be assigned in chapters in a survey course. Thus each chapter has to be able to stand alone, and be understood in isolation, even if certain theses have already been tangentially explored in an earlier chapter. But if you look past that, the chapters each give a richer, more nuanced picture of the issues that the Introduction sketches, and as my understanding of the lived reality of this ethnic experience (not one I own in the slightest; I am a Majority Male) grew as I read, the later chapters built on the earlier.

In light of the election of President Obama, there has been a lot said and written about a "Post-Racial" society.I found "Pure Beauty" to be a well-researched and written opposition of empirical fact to this perhaps wishful notion.The participants in these pageants, particularly the young multi-racial women, seem to be BOTH rejecting and embracing the notion that race and ethnic identity don't matter; or to put it another way, they are more interested in REDEFINING boundaries and identities than blowing them up outright.

Highly Recommended.

Important intersection of sociology and community-based work
This book is ground-breaking in its effort to discuss racial identity, changing demographics, and their meaning in the context of beauty pageants, a Japanese American institution.For those of us working in community-based organizations, King-O'Riain's book explains and gives context to the tensions around multi-racial Japanese Americans and how our organizations are changing and need to change.For example, multi-racial people are asserting themselves as a part of the community and some community members are resisting their inclusion.This book helps us in the community to evaluate how our organizations will respond to this tension, which is a vital for us to be relevant and to survive.Not limited to those people in the Japanese American community, King-O'Riain's book is an important read for people working in any community that is facing these changes.

What a waste
Don't bother reading.Read the intro and it pretty much tells you all you need to know.Repeats herself throughout 200+ pages, does not provide any innovative insight. ... Read more

Product Description
Determined to be a U.S. Marine Corps officer, Bruce Yamashita enrolled in Officer Candidate School, where he was the target of persistent racial harassment by officers and staff. After enduring nine weeks of emotional and physical abuse, Yamashita was "disenrolled" in April 1989--kicked out of the Marine Corps because of the color of his skin. Fighting Tradition is Yamashita's own story of his courageous struggle to expose a pattern of racial discrimination against minorities that has existed at various levels of the Corps. With the support of a broad coalition of community and civil rights organizations, the Hawai'i-born law school graduate fought a five-year-long legal, political, and media battle against the military establishment that ended in his commissioning as a captain and the revision of Marine Corps policies and procedures. Fighting Tradition is not only a moving story of personal sacrifice and vision, but contributes also both directly and indirectly to our understanding of the complexities of institutional racism in a politically conservative, demographically shifting society. It is a unique window into the dynamics of race, government, and the law and a stirring reminder of the importance of political mobilization by the individual to achieve justice.

"A valuable account of one person's fight against racial profiling and the inexcusable damage to civil liberties and self-worth that result from it." --- Dennis Ogawa, University of Hawai'i ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

FOR Asian American marines,BY an Asian American marine a must READ!
I am aAmerican marine and served as an 0311 rifleman in the Marine Corps 5th infantry regiment and i would like to say I love this book. I am currently receiving my GI BILL and my major is Asian American Studies. I am writing my senior paper on Asian American Marines. This book is a real realistic and honest look into modern racism in the Marines. REAL marines that have seen a combat deployment will be able to decypher fact from fiction and this is the real deal. Asian America needs REAL patriots like this author, and some SELLOUTS who remain nameless need to go home with their fictional world of a level playing field. YOU sir are a good marine!
Semper FI

I was there too
There was no tradition of discriminating against Asians in the USMC...I would refer you to Navy Cross recipient Maj Chew-Een Lee USMC - what do you think he underwent being a AA Marine officer in the 50s!I was at OCS the same time Bruce was there...no big deal - some racial remarks but nothing I would call institutionalized discrimination.I and a Vietnamese-American graduated the same summer he was there - why weren't we dropped?Maybe because we performed to acceptable standards while Bruce did not.OCS is meant to subject candidates to mental and physical stress - if you can't hack someone calling you names - how will you take combat??Most of my Sgt Instructors were minorities themselves -if anything I think they were glad to see that a minority was becoming an officer.I've been a Marine officer for 15 years and can only say - I think he's made himself famous at the expense of other AA Marine officers who have graduated OCS without having to file a lawsuit.
Semper Fidelis ... Read more

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Challenging the prevailing view of Hawaii as a mythical"racial paradise," Gary Okihiro presents this history of a systematicanti-Japanese movement in the islands from the time migrant workerswere brought to the sugar cane fields until the end of World WarII. He demonstrates that the racial discrimination against JapaneseAmericans that occurred on the West Coast during the second World Warclosely paralleled the less familiar oppression of Hawaii’s Japanese,which evolved from the production needs of the sugar planters to themilitary’s concern over the "menace of alien domination."

Okihiro convincingly argues that those concerns motivated theconsolidation of the plantation owners, the Territorial government,and the U.S. military-Hawaii’s elite-into a single force thatpropelled the anti-Japanese movement, while the military devisedsecret plans for martial law and the removal and detention of JapaneseAmericans in Hawaii two decades before World War II. ... Read more

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Japanese in Hawaii
Problematizing the orthodox view of Hawaii as a fabled "racial paradise," In Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii, 1865 - 1945, Gary Okihiro narrates a history of a systematic anti-Japanese movement in the Hawaiian Islands from initial immigration to the sugar cane fields (1865) until the end of World War II (1945). Although the persecution of Japanese Americans on the U.S. West Coast is much discussed; in comparison, little is known about the Japanese American experience in Hawaii. Okihiro argues that the racial discrimination against Japanese Americans that occurred on the West Coast during World War II closely resembles the less familiar oppression of Hawaii's Japanese (Issei) and Japanese Americans (Nisei), which developed as a phenomenon starting from the production requirement of the sugar planters to culminating with military's concern over the "menace of alien domination." Conflict over economic and social issues degenerated as the Japanese demanded fair treatment from the exploitive plantation owners, and the concurrent rise of Japan as a world power complicated the issue. Okihiro argues that both these concerns motivated the amalgamation of the plantation owners, the Territorial government, as well as the U.S. military. This bonding Hawaii's elite into a combined force drove and informed the anti-Japanese movement. According to Okihiro, the military devised clandestine plans for martial law and the removal and detention of Japanese Americans in Hawaii for almost 20 years prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Okihiro sees Hawaii's Japanese selective relocations during World War II as just as important (if not more significant vis-à-vis racialization) as that on the mainland. ... Read more

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Following the end of World War II, Congress passed the War Brides Act of 1945, which allowed foreign wives of U.S. military personnel to immigrate to the United States. However, with the ban of Asian immigration after World War II, the sudden influx of thousands of women created social tension while opening up one of the country's largest cross-cultural integrations. This book reveals the stories of nineteen Japanese war brides whose assimilation into American culture forever influenced future generations, depicting love, strength, and perseverance in the face of incredible odds. With an estimated 50,000 women who migrated from Japan to the U.S. during 1946-1965, they all hold a unique place in American history and have been called ambassadors to the U.S. For the first time in English these women share their triumphs, sorrows, successes, and identity in a time when their own future was tainted by social segregation.

This oral history focuses mainly on women's lives during World War II and the occupation of Japan. It illuminates the cultural expectations, the situations brought about by the war, and effects of the occupation, and also includes quotes from various war brides regarding this time. Chapter interviews are set up in chronological fashion and laid out in the following format: introduction of the war bride, how she met her husband, her initial travels to America, and life thereafter. Where needed, explanations, translations, and background history with references are provided.

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Great Book
An informative book about the lives of Japanese war brides and their happiness and struggle. All 19 Japanese War Brides have an interesting tale that expresses the extreme cultural differences between Japan and America. ... Read more