While some may be familiar with Terie Miyamoto or TV and movie star George Takei and their background as internees or descendants of internees at U.S. concentration camps for Japanese Americans during World War II, theirs are not the only voices to talk about the experience.
Penguin Random House recently published a new anthology of nearly 70 stories of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry who were forced out of their homes and into concentration camps across the United States.
Edited by Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung, the selections comprise fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs and letters that show a shared story of the struggle to retain personal integrity in the face of increasing dehumanization.
Some of them are new translations of previously unseen works that have been long overlooked on the shelf, buried in the archives or languished unread in the Japanese language.
The contributors run the gamut from incarcerees, their children born in or soon after the camps as well as their descendants who reflect on the long-term consequences of mass incarceration for themselves and the nation.
You can learn more about the book at penguinrandomhouse.com.
