Arthur A. Hansen
@Art_HansenArt Hansen is Professor Emeritus of History and Asian American Studies at California State University, Fullerton, where he retired in 2008 as the director of the Center for Oral and Public History. Between 2001 and 2005, he served as Senior Historian at the Japanese American National Museum. Since 2018, he has authored or edited four books that focus on the topic of the resistance by Japanese Americans to their unjust World War II oppression by the US government.
Updated August 2023
Stories from This Author
Yamato Colony: A Japanese Village in Southern Florida
June 22, 2020 • Arthur A. Hansen
When asked to review Yamato Colony: The Pioneers Who Brought Japan to Florida for the Discover Nikkei site, I was delighted to oblige for two main reasons. The first was my passionate interest as a historian in Japanese American communities outside of those well-known and amply documented ones on the West Coast. This interest was catalyzed by my participation in the Japanese American National Museum (JANM)-sponsored REgenerations Oral History Project (1997-2000), which encompassed World War II and postwar Nikkei resettlement in …
Dysfunction and Sacrifice as Binding Ties
Nov. 7, 2019 • Arthur A. Hansen , Nichi Bei News
Andrew Lam, the author of the book under review, studied history at Yale University — where he graduated summa cum laude — and afterward became a retinal surgeon. His third book, Repentance, is a work of historical fiction that is debatably comparable to such classic works of this genre pertaining to the Japanese American historical experience as Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston’s Farewell to Manzanar (1973) and David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars (1994). All three of these …
Counteracting 'Invisibility' Within the JA Community
Oct. 16, 2019 • Arthur A. Hansen , Nichi Bei News
This substantial volume is co-edited by two distinguished Nikkei practitioners of Japanese American studies, one a Japan-based anthropologist, Yasuko Takezawa of Kyoto University, and the other a U.S.-situated historian, Gary Okihiro of Columbia University. Although this work is primarily targeted at other scholars and advanced university students within their common transpacific field of inquiry, its well-grounded and illuminating introduction, 14 essays, and 7 perspectival responses to the book’s contents have much to offer a general readership. At bottom, the mission …
Unearthing one family's history
Sept. 16, 2019 • Arthur A. Hansen , Nichi Bei News
The volume under review, the most recent of many documentary books by award-winning veteran independent researcher, writer, and producer Tom Coffman, characteristically incorporates historical themes pertaining to Hawai‘i. What makes Tadaima! I Am Home different, however, is that its focus is upon a Hawai‘i Nikkei family history as viewed from a multigenerational, transnational perspective. Within its short compass, readers are provided with a fascinating five-generation exploration by Coffman of male Miwa family members extending from its fallen samurai progenitor in Meiji …
The truth behind religious freedom in Japan
Aug. 23, 2019 • Arthur A. Hansen , Nichi Bei News
Although only an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Jolyon Baraka Thomas has already published one remarkable book, Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime, and Religion in Contemporary Japan (University of Hawai‘i Press), and is presently working on a third book with the tentative title of “Difficult Subjects: Debating Religion and Public Education in Japan and the United States.” As for the volume under review here, Thomas’ second book, it is a brilliantly conceived, deeply researched, tightly …
The Causes and Consequences of a Government ‘Scheme’
Aug. 7, 2019 • Arthur A. Hansen , Nichi Bei News
Some readers may well wonder why this book by seasoned Latin American journalist Mary Jo McConahay is being reviewed here for their consumption, consideration, and contemplation. After all, its focus, as the volume’s title intimates, is the World War II shadow war for the Western Hemisphere pitting the Axis against the Allies for popular support, military advantage, and natural resources, one in which each side, “closely shadowed the steps of the other, like dancers in a tango” (pp. xii). While …
Rediscovering Honouliuli and preserving former camp sites
March 11, 2019 • Arthur A. Hansen , Nichi Bei News
Having previously read with enjoyment and edification a trio of books published by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i — Life behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawaii Issei (2008), Family Torn Apart: The Internment Story of the Otokichi Muin Ozaki Family (2012) and Haisho Tenten: An Internment Odyssey (2017) — I was overjoyed by the prospect of scrutinizing still another sterling JCCH volume. Although not as ambitious in analytical penetration, topical and thematic context, and historical detail …
Deconstructing intersections of Asian America
Feb. 22, 2019 • Arthur A. Hansen , Nichi Bei News
Up until 2004, I was a mere (and rather unreflective) spectator to taiko drumming. However, that year I fortuitously became involved as an oral historian in a Japanese American National Museum-sponsored project that culminated in a 2005-2006 exhibition at JANM titled Big Drum: Taiko in the U.S. Curated by Sojin Kim, it featured a new documentary DVD of the same name that included parts of the exhibition media installations as well performances by various taiko groups and videotaped interviews with key …
A ‘Family-themed Inquiry’ into the ‘Wages of War’
Jan. 23, 2019 • Arthur A. Hansen , Nichi Bei News
This book by Matthew Elms is a heart-rending Japanese American family-themed inquiry into the dismaying “wages of war.” It is published by the American Battle Monuments Commission, a national government agency charged with the maintenance of 27 cemeteries worldwide that honor more than 200,000 Americans who lost their lives in the military service of their country during World War I and World War II. Consistent with the ABMC’s mission, Elms wrote When the Akimotos Went to War “to highlight the true …
Heart and Courage: A Nisei Veteran’s Story
Nov. 12, 2018 • Arthur A. Hansen , Nichi Bei News
As a visit to almost any American new or used bookstore will quickly confirm, military history is an exceedingly popular genre of literature. This is particularly the case as it pertains to World War II, including that of the heroic role played by Japanese American troops. For the most part, the particular role that has commanded primary attention in this connection has been the exploits of the segregated 100th Infantry Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and the 552nd Field …
