Greg Robinson
Greg 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
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- By Greg Robinson
- 14 Nov 2023
The late author and screenwriter James Clavell is best remembered these days for his series of bestselling novels set in Asia, most notably the 1975 epic Shogun. A sprawling fictionalized account of the origins of the Tokugawa regime, it recounted the adventures of John Blackthorne, an English mariner shipwrecked in Japan. In 1980, Shogun was adapted into a hit television miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune, with Clavell serving as executive producer.
Shogun helped introduce a generation of white Americans to classical Japanese history and language (unlike in Clavell…
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- By Greg Robinson
- 20 Oct 2023
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Aijiro and Nao Tashiro had five children who had distinctive (and distinct) careers. Today I will speak of the eldest child of the family, Kenji Munn Tashiro, known as Ken. I will go on to explore the particular contributions of the other Tashiro children in separate columns.
Ken Tashiro was born in Waterbury, Connecticut on April 17, 1906. The news of his birth was widely publicized in the mainstream press, as it was reportedly the first birth of a “pure-blooded Japanese” in New England. Ken spent his early years with his family in Connecticut and Rhod…
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- By Greg Robinson
- 13 Oct 2023
One aspect of Japanese American history that I have been fascinated to uncover is that of family dynasties—the sagas of clans with multiple members who made outstanding commercial, scientific or artistic contributions. One such clan is the Tajiris, a family whose members included the journalists Larry Tajiri and his wife Guyo; the sculptor Shinkichi Tajiri; the photographer Vince Tajiri; and the writer/newspaperwoman Yoshiko Tajiri Roberts, as well as their multiple generations of creative descendants (such as the artists Giotta and Ryu Tajiri, the filmmaker Rea Tajiri, the scholar Vinc…
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- By Bo Tao, Greg Robinson
- 14 Sep 2023
Some time ago, we did a column for Discover Nikkei on the Japanese evangelist and social reformer Toyohiko Kagawa. During his lifetime, Kagawa was renowned as a prolific writer—he authored some 150 books—and apostle of Christian socialism. Because of the spiritual dimension he brought to his leadership of movements for social and economic justice in the pre-World War II period, his American missionary associates often referred to him as the “Gandhi of Japan”—though when Kagawa actually met Mahatma Gandhi in India in 1939, the two clashed over Kagawa’s reluc…
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culture
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- By Jonathan van Harmelen, Greg Robinson
- 28 Aug 2023
What images come to mind when we think of the wartime experience of Japanese Americans? For many, the photographs produced by Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams or Toyo Miyatake come to mind, with their unique portrayals of the human condition. Yet equally powerful and moving are the representations of the incarceration experience produced by the diverse crew of visual artists who worked in camp, including such figures as Miné Okubo and Chiura Obata.
One artist who created striking images of confinement was Kango Takamura. A painter and photographer, Takamura was one of the few Issei t…
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