Japanese American

Julie Otsuka’s commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese internment camps unlike any we have ever seen. With crystalline intensity and precision, Otsuka uses a single family to evoke the deracination—both physical and emotional—of a generation of Japanese Americans. In five...

This is the story of Morning Glory’s turn of the century kenbutsu—her travels—to America. Guided by her uncle, a Harvard graduate, Morning Glory travels at a time when most Americans know little or nothing about Japan, aside from the popular tunes of The Mikado (1885) and The Geisha (1896).

One of the last, great untold stories of World War II—kept hidden for decades—even after most of the World War II records were declassified in 1972, many of the files remained untouched in various archives—a gripping true tale of courage and adventure from Bruce Henderson, master...

In 2008, the author/narrator embarks on a poignant journey to Minidoka, one of the 10 former US concentration camps authorized by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, where tens of thousands of American men, women, and children were incarcerated solely because of their race.

“One of Ten Best History Books of 2021.” —Smithsonian Magazine For fans of The Boys in the Boat and The Storm on Our Shores, this impeccably researched, deeply moving, never-before-told “tale that ultimately stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit” (Garrett M. Graff...

On October 24, 1944, more than 200 American soldiers were surrounded by German infantry deep in the Vosges Mountains of Eastern France. When their food, ammunition, and medical supplies ran out, the area's army headquarters turned to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated unit of Japanese American soldiers, to achieve what other units had failed to do: rescue the "lost battalion".

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain." However, in East Asia, there are three tigers on that mountain: China, Japan, and Korea, and they have a long history of turmoil and tension with each other. In his latest entertaining and thought-provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, the enmity is between these three "tiger" nations and what prevents them from making peace.

Between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. government wrongfully imprisoned thousands of Japanese American citizens and profited from their labor. Japanese American Incarceration recasts the forced removal and incarceration of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II as a history of prison labor and exploitation.

This anthology presents a new vision that recovers and reframes the literature produced by the people targeted by the actions of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress to deny Americans of Japanese ancestry any individual hearings or other due process after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. From nearly seventy selections of fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs, and letters emerges a shared story of the struggle to retain personal integrity in the face of increasing dehumanization—all anchored by the key government documents that incite the action.

Izumi Tanaka has never really felt like she fit in - it isn’t easy being Japanese American in her small, mostly White, northern California town. Raised by a single mother, it’s always been Izumi - or Izzy, because “it’s easier this way” - and her mom against the world. But then Izumi discovers a clue to her previously unknown father’s identity...and he’s none other than the Crown Prince of Japan. Which means outspoken, irreverent Izzy is literally a princess.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Read by the author. "A fast-paced debut...Espionage buffs will savor this vibrant account." — Publishers Weekly A U.S. naval counterintelligence officer working to safeguard Pearl Harbor; a Japanese spy ordered to Hawaii to gather information on the American fleet. On...

Listeners of this book will gain a clear understanding of what makes the Japanese, and their society, tick.

What do you get when you marry a calculating mobster to the infamous "Black Widow" of the yakuza? A union soaked in blood and betrayal. I never expected to be getting married, especially not to the most dangerous figure in the Sato family. But when a chance to strengthen our family's grip on New York's underworld presents itself, I know I can't refuse. My loyalty to the Ricci name demands this sacrifice, even if it means tying my fate to someone who might be plotting my demise. But nothing is as it seems. Instead of a ruthless killer, Kuroi Sato turns out to be a chaotic force of nature—...

Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of China. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments in the name of science and Japan's wartime chemical and biological warfare research. Author Hal Gold draws upon a wealth of sources to construct a portrait of the Imperial Japanese Army's most notorious medical unit, giving an overview of its history and detailing its most shocking activities.

The mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is not only a tale of injustice; it is a moving story of faith. In this pathbreaking account, Duncan Ryuken Williams reveals how, even as they were stripped of their homes and imprisoned in camps, Japanese American Buddhists launched one of the most inspiring defenses of religious freedom in our nation's history, insisting that they could be both Buddhist and American.

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. Instead, he put his work in the...

Kiko Yoshida works as a Keno runner at the Serengeti Casino in Las Vegas while dreaming of a career as a singer and dancer. She catches the eye of a big-time mobster who demands to have her sent to his room. Casino manager Eddie Mazzetti promises her a part in “The Flower Drum Song” when it comes to Las Vegas if she will be the mobster’s escort for one evening. Kiko shows up at Frankie “The Whale” Pescatore’s executive suite expecting to be his date at a fancy dinner with politicians and executives of the gambling industry. Within minutes, she realizes she has made a terrible ...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER One of NPR's "Books We Love" of 2021 Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Winner of the Christopher Award “Masterly. An epic story of four Japanese-American families and their sons who volunteered for military service and displayed...

What do you get when you marry a calculating mobster to the infamous "Black Widow" of the yakuza? A union soaked in blood and betrayal. I never expected to be getting married, especially not to the most dangerous figure in the Sato family. But when a chance to strengthen our family's grip on New York's underworld presents itself, I know I can't refuse. My loyalty to the Ricci name demands this sacrifice, even if it means tying my fate to someone who might be plotting my demise. But nothing is as it seems. Instead of a ruthless killer, Kuroi Sato turns out to be a chaotic force of nature—...

In late 1944 the Allies invaded the Japanese-held Philippines, and soon the end of the Pacific War was within reach. But for the last 150 American prisoners of war still held on the island of Palawan, there would be no salvation. As soldiers, sailors, and marines were herded into shallow air raid shelters, Japanese soldiers doused them with gasoline and set them on fire. By the next morning, only 11 men were left alive - but their desperate journey to freedom had just begun.