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Cultural Writing. Asian-American Studies. Shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted from their homes and communitites and banished to remote internment camps. This collection of haunting reminiscences, letters, stories, poems, and graphic art gives voice to the range of powerful emotions with which these victims of wartime hysteria struggled. ONLY WHAT WE COULD CARRY gathers together the voices of internement -- private, personal stories that could have been lost, but will now be heard and felt. It's a if we have a seat at a family dinner, listening to stories passed down from one generation to another, feeling the pian and the spirit of hope -- David Mas Masumoto. Edited by Lawson Fusao Inada, with a preface by Patricia Wakida and an afterword by William Hohri.
About the author
Lawson Fusao Inada is regarded by many as the poet laureate of Japanese America.He is co-editor of Aiiieeeee!(1983) and The Big Aiiieeeee! (1991) and author of Legends from Camp (1992) and Drawing the Line (1997). Inada is a multiple recipient of NEA Poetry Fellowships and has read his works at the White House. He has been Professor of English at Southern Oregon State College since 1966.
Patricia Wakida’s published books, essays, stories, and poetry include: Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience, Generations Experience; A Japanese American Community Portrait, Letters of Intent, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Nikkei Heritage, Kyoto Journal, Santa Barbara Review, and the International Quarterly.
William Hohri is a Nisei born in San Francisco in 1927. He was interned at the Manzanar camp during his high school years and graduated from the University of Chicago after the war. He is the author of Repairing America: An Account of the Movement for Japanese-American Redress (1988) and was a columnist for the Rafu Shimpo newspaper.
Summary
The definitive anthology of Japanese American internment.
"In these stories are lifted up our humanity, our indomitable spirit and dignity, an implacable quest for justice"—Janice Mirikitani
Shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States government uprooted 120,000 people of Japanese descent from their homes and banished them to remote internment camps. This collection of reminiscences, stories, poems, photographs, and graphic art expresses the range of powerful and sometimes conflicting emotions that arose from the internment experience. Also included are propaganda, government documents, and stories of those outside the camps whose lives were interwoven with those of the internees.
