Greg Robinson
@GregGreg Robinson, a native New Yorker, is Professor of History at l'Université du Québec À Montréal, a French-language institution in Montreal, Canada. He is the author of the books By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (Harvard University Press, 2001), A Tragedy of Democracy; Japanese Confinement in North America (Columbia University Press, 2009), After Camp: Portraits in Postwar Japanese Life and Politics (University of California Press, 2012), Pacific Citizens: Larry and Guyo Tajiri and Japanese American Journalism in the World War II Era (University of Illinois Press, 2012), and The Great Unknown: Japanese American Sketches (University Press of Colorado, 2016), as well as coeditor of the anthology Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road (University of Washington Press, 2008). Robinson is also coeditor of the volume John Okada - The Life & Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy (University of Washington Press, 2018).
His historical column “The Great Unknown and the Unknown Great,” is a well-known feature of the Nichi Bei Weekly newspaper. Robinson’s latest book is an anthology of his Nichi Bei columns and stories published on Discover Nikkei, The Unsung Great: Portraits of Extraordinary Japanese Americans (University of Washington Press, 2020). It was recognized with an Association for Asian American Studies Book Award for Outstanding Achievement in History Honorable Mention in 2022. He can be reached at robinson.greg@uqam.ca.
Updated March 2022
Stories from This Author
Layle Lane: Black Woman Educator and Defender of Japanese Americans
Aug. 10, 2023 • Greg Robinson
One crucial aspect of Nikkei history that has not received due recognition from community chroniclers is the close relations between Japanese Americans and blacks, and especially the disproportionate support that African Americans offered Nisei during the World War II period. In past columns, I have discussed the efforts of such outstanding figures as Hugh Macbeth, Loren Miller, and Howard Thurman to defend the rights of Japanese Americans. The activism of Black women was less visible, but arguably even more impressive, given …
Sadakichi Hartmann and Nisei Writers: An Early Mentor and Inspiration
July 27, 2023 • Greg Robinson
Floyd Cheung, my brilliant friend and sometime collaborator, is a devoted scholar of Asian American literature. I was intrigued recently when I came across his essay on the poet, art critic and onetime “King of Bohemia” Sadakichi Hartmann—a piece written in conjunction with the release of a volume of Hartmann’s poems edited by Floyd. In his essay, Floyd refers to Hartmann as a “missing link”: a groundbreaking modernist who helped bring Japanese poetic forms into English and to inspire poets …
Madame Sojin and Eddie Sojin: The Lives of Chie and Edo Mita
July 13, 2023 • Greg Robinson
In the first half of this segment, I traced the career of Hollywood silent film actor Sojin Kamiyama. In the second half, I would like to flesh out aspects of the intriguing (and largely unknown) careers of Sojin’s wife Uraji Yamakawa and their son Edo Heihachi Mita [Kamiyama], who combined acting with work in other creative fields. The woman who would gain fame as Uraji Yamakawa was born in Tokyo in 1885, the daughter of Morikazu and Komatsu Mita. Her birth …
Sojin Kamiyama: The Man they called Sôjin
July 12, 2023 • Greg Robinson
Among all the Japanese actors who graced Hollywood screens in the silent and early sound eras, perhaps none had such a charismatic and powerful presence as Sojin (Kamiyama). Though he spent only a relatively short time in the United States, and never attained the level of stardom of his contemporary Sessue Hayakawa, his work attracted attention and won him fans on both sides of the Pacific. Sojin Kamiyama was born Tadashi (AKA Tei) Mita in Sendai, Japan, on January 30, …
Ernest Meyer: A Progressive Voice in Defense of Japanese Americans
June 26, 2023 • Greg Robinson
In the period following the outbreak of the Pacific War, newspapers played a leading role in fomenting racial prejudice against Japanese Americans by reporting baseless accounts of espionage and fifth-column activity. West Coast columnists such as Harry McLemore beat the drum for mass removal of ethnic Japanese. Outside the West Coast, the distinguished columnist Walter Lippmann repeated rumors of contact between Japanese Americans and Japanese ships, while columnists from Damon Runyon to Westbrook Pegler penned negative pieces. In this hostile …
A Love Letter to My Father
June 18, 2023 • Greg Robinson
Some years ago I wrote a column, “Nunc Pro Tunc,” which recounted my development as a historian and the central influence on it of my late mother Toni Robinson. Today I want to pay tribute to my father, Ed Robinson, and how he has shaped my life and work as a historian of Japanese Americans. It is a little curious to be doing so around Father’s Day, as it is a day whose existence he refuses to recognize: “I don’t …
Ansel Adams and Born Free and Equal: Another View
June 5, 2023 • Greg Robinson
A number of scholars, including Nancy Matsumoto, Jasmine Alinder, and Elena Tajima Creef among others, have discussed photographer Ansel Adams’s landmark 1944 volume Born Free and Equal. The story behind the book remains fairly obscure, especially Adams’s connection with Harold Ickes. Ansel Adams was nearly forty years old and already a famed photographer, renowned for his classic Western landscapes, when World War II broke out. Too old for military service, he took on various civilian functions. Perhaps paradoxically, it was …
Paul Takagi: A Centenary Remembrance
May 3, 2023 • Greg Robinson
May 3, 2023 marks the 100th birthday of the late Bay Area scholar and advocate Paul Takagi. As professor at UC Berkeley, Paul helped shape the university’s School of Criminology, adopting the “crime and social justice” approach of Radical Criminology. In Fall 1969, he taught the first course in Asian American Studies at Berkeley, helping usher in a new field of study nationwide. Meanwhile, Paul and his wife Mary Ann Takagi, together with Raymond Okamura, helped lead the fight to …
Of Inomatas and Kingis: The Story of a Remarkable Family
March 30, 2023 • Greg Robinson
If ever there was an award offered for the most remarkable Japanese American family saga, one formidable contender would be that of the Inomata clan, as revealed in the book Pure Winds, Bright Moon, by Kinji Inomata, as well as supplementary documents. Their history defies simple-minded ideas about Japanese Americans, their lives, and their interactions with other groups. The family story starts with a Japanese boy named Kenji Inomata. He was born in 1885 in Kashiwazaki, Niigata, Japan, the son …
Postwar Japanese Emigration to the Dominican Republic — Part 2: The Japanese American Response
March 13, 2023 • Greg Robinson
Read Part 1 >> As mentioned, the Japanese government’s postwar project to resettle Japanese citizens in the Dominican Republic, which was troubled from the outset, collapsed in mid-1961 after the assassination of Dominican strongman Rafael Trujillo. Within a year, more than half the people involved returned to Japan, while the largest fraction of the others moved to Brazil or other countries. One of the few shining elements of the story is that of the impressive mobilization of the Japanese American community …
