In 2022, I received an email from my friend Frank Abe, informing me that he and Floyd Cheung had undertaken on a long-term project compiling an anthology on the literature of the incarceration. Intrigued, I waited to see what Frank and Floyd would produce. After two years, the highly anticipated project is now complete, and has been published under the title The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration. 

The book follows in the footsteps of several anthologies about the camp experience, such as Lawson Fusao Inada’s literary collection Only What We Could Carry, and oral history projects such as John Tateishi’s And Justice For All and Susan Kamei’s When Can We Come Home? However, in this case, the authors set out to accomplish a very specific task: to outline a cohesive narrative of the camp experience through literature, by providing the perspectives of authors of varying backgrounds, ranging from the familiar to the obscure on the wartime Nikkei experience.

To do so not only required investigating the enormous amount that has already been written about these tragic events, but also deciding whether the existing literary canon adequately related the camp experience. In compiling this new anthology, the editors have accomplished a rare feat of assembling a diverse array of writers who responded to their imprisonment in various ways.

Like its predecessors, this anthology follows a chronological structure. Part I, “Before Camp,” examines the prewar years and the weeks immediately following Pearl Harbor. Here, you will see the brief twinkle of what life might have been had the camps never existed. Instead, December 7 became a point of no return; the editors emphasize the arrest of Issei leaders as a moment when the community was shattered, and families were separated. In months after February 19, 1942 when President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, the community was durably divided between those who went along with the government and those who became vocal dissidents.

Part II, “The Camps,” lies at the core of this anthology. Covering the initial movement to the Army’s temporary detention centers ("assembly centers” in official parlance) through the traumatic adjustment to camp life in deserts and swamps, this section offers some of the book’s most poignant pieces. Alongside some more familiar names, like those of Toyo Suyemoto, Toshio Mori, and Mitsuye Yamada, you will also find a set of writings from unknown camp authors.

For example, several writings by authors affiliated with Tessaku, a Japanese-language literary magazine from Tule Lake, are featured in the collection. Long ignored by historians and literary critics due to its obscure origin (and being a Japanese language text), Tessaku is now receiving attention thanks to the work of a team of translators led by UC Berkeley professor Andrew Way Leong, who worked with the editors of this project to give life to this “lost” document.

The inclusion of Tessaku and other writings from Tule Lake are an important addition to this volume, as well as an acknowledgement of the literary strength of the Tule Lake community, both before and after segregation.

Part III, “After Camp,” is divided into three parts: resettlement, redress, and remembrance. In this section, readers will find a series of writings corresponding to historical events, such as Shosuke Sasaki and William Hohri’s descriptions of the redress movement, as well as poetic remembrances of the camps such as Iwao Kawakami’s moving postwar poem, “The Paper” (inspired by the shooting of Topaz inmate James Wakasa). In “repeating history,” the editors offer a selection of essays and poems on how to think about the camps as a historical event and cultural touchstone for the community.

One unique aspect of this volume stems from the conscious decision of the editors to underline the work of resisters and dissidents—people whose voices had been largely ignored in the historical record until recently. Readers familiar with Abe’s work will recognize Frank Emi, Yoshito Kuromiya, and the Fair Play Committee—the heroes of Frank’s 2000 documentary Conscience and the Constitution.

Indeed, one particular piece, “Song of Cheyenne” by Eddie Yanagisako and Kenroku Sumida, was originally translated by noted poet Violet Kazue de Cristoforo for Abe’s film. Abe and Cheung also naturally include the work of John Okada, the eponymous subject of their previous critical anthology with primary documents (which was co-edited with Greg Robinson).

Another unique characteristic of this volume is the editors’ decision to include texts of government documents. While such documents are not readily recognized as literature, they provide section breaks and serve as a chronological divider of events within the camps. Examples include the text of Executive Order 9066, internal correspondence by staff of the War Relocation Authority, and the conclusions of Personal Justice Denied, the report from the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians that recommended redress.

Such a structure reminds this reviewer of Frank Chin’s Born In the U.S.A, which presented a collage of government records and interviews with former inmates to tell the story of the JACL’s collusion with camp officials. The editors’ choices to place particular emphasis on Tule Lake—which occupies a large part of this volume—also offers a parallel with Chin’s Born In the U.S.A.

I believe that more pieces from the prewar years might have better enlightened readers about the history of anti-Japanese discrimination that resulted in the camps. For Part I, Before Camp, the editors included just three texts—excerpts from Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama’s 1931 graphic book The Four Immigrants Manga; Ayako Ishigaki’s 1940 novel Restless Wave; and Toshio Mori’s Yokohama, California (which was written before the war but not published until 1949). Little is said about the 1930s, an influential decade where tensions over loyalty took root, before emerging as a major issue during the war—one that is a theme of this book.

In terms of camp literature about immigration, I am likewise reminded of the short story “Tomorrow is Coming, Children,” by Toshio Mori, which tells the story of an Issei woman’s immigration journey to San Francisco. When it first appeared in the Topaz concentration camp literary magazine Trek’s February 1943 issue, it was accompanied by beautiful illustrations by Tom Yamamoto and Miné Okubo.

While The Four Immigrants Manga provides a good overview of prewar discrimination, something like “Tomorrow Is Coming” would have provided a unique contrast in that it illustrated the immigrant experience—albeit one that was censored by the WRA and supportive of the JACL’s resettlement agenda.

Some perspectives from non-Japanese Americans might have been interesting to include. True, the government documents do represent a kind of non-Japanese American perspective—that of elected officials, empowered bigots, and apathetic administrators. I believe offering the views of outsiders to the community, especially those who opposed the incarceration, would have enriched this volume.

A selection of the writings of black Americans such as civil rights attorney Hugh MacBeth or poet Langston Hughes, or critiques in the NAACP’s journal The Crisis, would have demonstrated to readers that the camps were not wholly welcomed by all Americans. Interestingly, the editors also consciously exclude familiar chroniclers like Miné Okubo and Yoshiko Uchida, likely because of their assumed familiarity to readers.

To be sure, no anthology is definitive; all are the start of something greater. What is more, any reservations I might have about the editors’ choices does not minimize the importance of this volume. The editors faced the difficult task of assembling a collection of texts to tell the history of camp, a subject fraught with emotion.

They did so with the goal of acknowledging the importance of dissent within the Japanese American incarceration experience. Such an act marks a cultural shift that was not possible in previous decades, when the name Tule Lake was rarely uttered in connection with Japanese Americans. And, with their choice of publisher and Hua Hsu’s endorsement in The New Yorker, this volume will likely reach a much wider audience than previous works on the incarceration.

If anything, I hope readers of this review will not only be inspired to pick up a copy, but to enter into it with a curiosity over the nature of the literature on the Japanese American incarceration experience. For readers new to the incarceration, this volume will provide a dazzling variety of voices. For those more familiar with this story, the editors provide comprehensive overview of some major authors and new ones who have been previously ignored by literary experts.

The author recently interviewed Abe and Cheung about their anthology. Check out his interview here.

THE LITERATURE OF JAPANESE AMERICAN INCARCERATION
Introduction by Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung, Edited by Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung
Purchase at the JANM store

© 2024 Jonathan van Harmelen