Remembering Our Grandfathers’ Exile
US Imprisonment of Hawai‘i’s Japanese in World War II
by Gail Y. Okawa
Description
| When author Gail Okawa was in high school in Honolulu, a neighbor mentioned that her maternal grandfather had been imprisoned in a World War II concentration camp on the US mainland. Questioning her parents, she learned only that “he came back a changed man.” Years later, as an adult salvaging that grandfather’s memorabilia, she found a mysterious photo of a group of Japanese men standing in front of an adobe building, compelling her eventually to embark on a project to learn what happened to him. Remembering Our Grandfathers’ Exile is a composite chronicling of the Hawai‘i Japanese immigrant experience in mainland exile and internment during World War II, from pre-war climate to arrest to exile to return. Told through the eyes of a granddaughter and researcher born during the war, it is also a research narrative that reveals parallels between pre-WWII conditions and current twenty-first century anti-immigrant attitudes and heightened racism. The book introduces Okawa’s grandfather, Reverend Tamasaku Watanabe, a Protestant minister, and other Issei prisoners—all legal immigrants excluded by law from citizenship—in a collective biographical narrative that depicts their suffering, challenges, and survival as highly literate men faced with captivity in the little-known prison camps run by the U.S. Justice and War Departments. Okawa interweaves documents, personal and official, and internees’ firsthand accounts, letters, and poetry to create a narrative that not only conveys their experience but, equally important, exemplifies their literacy as ironic and deliberate acts of resistance to oppressive conditions. Her research revealed that the Hawai‘i Issei/immigrants who had sons in military service were eventually distinguished from the main group; the narrative relates visits of some of those sons to their imprisoned fathers in New Mexico and elsewhere, as well as the deaths of sons killed in action in Europe and the Pacific. Documents demonstrate the high degree of literacy and advocacy among the internees, as well as the inherent injustice of the government’s policies. Okawa’s project later expanded to include New Mexico residents having memories of the Santa Fe Internment Camp—witnesses who provide rare views of the wartime reality. |
More Information
Reviews
| Meticulous in his documentation, Watanabe Tamasaku left photographs and a carefully bundled collection of letters from Santa Fe Detention Station to his daughter, Sumi, mother of the author of this remarkable and moving history, <i>Remembering Our Grandfathers’ Exile.</i> This memory narrative, a personal journey of coming into consciousness, is filled with names and lives of integrity and dignity, comprising a community of remembrance and commemoration. |
Author Biography
| Gail Y. Okawa is professor emerita of English at Youngstown State University, Ohio, and a visiting scholar at the Center for Biographical Research, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. |
University of Hawaii Press
University of Hawaii Press publishes scholarly and trade titles with a primary focus on Asian Studies, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, including Hawaii, and Asian-American Studies. Interested in buying and selling subsidiary rights.
View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher University of Hawaii Press
- Publication Date August 2020
- Orginal LanguageEnglish
- ISBN/Identifier 9780824881191
- Publication Country or regionWorldwide
- FormatPaperback
- Primary Price 26 USD
- Pages272
- ReadershipPrimary and Secondary Education
- Publish StatusPublished
- Original Language TitleEnglish
- Original Language AuthorsEnglish
- Copyright Year2020
- Page size6 x 9 (6 x 9) inches
- Illustration40 b&w illustrations, 4 maps
Thank you for proceeding with this offer.
University of Hawaii Press has chosen to review this offer before it proceeds.
You will receive an email update that will bring you back to complete the process.
You can also check the status in the My Offers area
University of Hawaii Press has chosen to review this offer before it proceeds.
You will receive an email update that will bring you back to complete the process.
You can also check the status in the My Offers area
Please wait while the payment is being prepared.
Do not close this window.
(c) Copyright 2024 - Frankfurt Rights. All Right Reserved