Previously, I wrote an article for Discover Nikkei on how the incarceration of Japanese Americans affected the 1942 election and how Japanese Americans managed to participate in the election. Despite the traumatic events of being sent to camp and efforts by racist politicians to keep Japanese American from voting, many Japanese …
One of the greatest accomplishments of the Japanese American Citizens League has been its success in lobbying Congress to enact legislation to support Japanese Americans and other Asian American groups. Long before the Redress movement of the 1980s, the JACL recognized the importance of Congressional action as a means of …
Archival research is often like gambling; either you get boxes of files that either contain golden information for your project, or a stack of dusty files that make you wonder if you wasted a day of work. And, sometimes, you come across a story you do not expect to find …
As part of my ongoing dissertation research on Congress and the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, I have come across vignettes in several archives that illustrate the influential role played by members of Congress. While perhaps the most visible actions taken by Congress regarding Japanese Americans were holding public hearings …
In recent years, Chin Music Press has produced a great run of graphic novels on the wartime Japanese American experience. These include Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura’s collaboration with illustrators Matt Sasaki and Ross Ishikawa on We Hereby Refuse, and the partnership of Kiku Hughes and Ken Mochizuki on Those …
During World War II, Japanese communities around the Pacific rim and elsewhere were subjected to displacement, internment, or incarceration. While the case of the West Coast of the United States is the most well-known, several nations hastily developed their own incarceration policies based on the assumption that Japanese communities, regardless …
As part of my ongoing series on Japanese American jazz musicians, I now turn to the fascinating story of Paul Togawa. Although most of the previous musicians I have showcased were all Nisei born in the 1920s, Togawa was a rare exception as a postwar Nisei who developed a successful …
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