Jonathan van Harmelen
@jonathanJonathan van Harmelen is a historian of Japanese Americans. He received his PhD in history at University of California, Santa Cruz in 2024, and has been a writer for Discover Nikkei since 2019. He can be reached at jvanharm@ucsc.edu.
Updated August 2024
Stories from This Author
The Short but Sweet Political Career of George E. Outland—Part 2
Dec. 12, 2024 • Jonathan van Harmelen
Read Part 1 Outland’s decision to not join the mess of other representatives who called for punishing the WRA earned the rancor of his anti-Japanese constituents. Newspapers like the Carpinteria Herald labelled Outland as “our alien-loving mis-representative.” Pacific Citizen editor Larry Tajiri wrote in his Nisei USA column that fellow Japanese Americans should be proud of politicians like Outland, Voorhis, Rogers, and Holifield, who “had the guts to vote against the Dies committee and who will not be stampeded by …
The Short but Sweet Political Career of George E. Outland—Part 1
Dec. 11, 2024 • Jonathan van Harmelen
As part of my ongoing study of the ways in which Congress shaped the lives of Japanese Americans in the World War II period, I have recently come across the career of George E. Outland. Recently, during a trip to the California State Library in Sacramento, I came across Outland’s personal papers. I knew that Outland was a member of the California congressional delegation during the war, but what surprised me was Outland’s ranging interests in the treatment of Japanese …
My 100th Article—A Five-Year Reflection
Nov. 5, 2024 • Jonathan van Harmelen
Since 2019, I have had the pleasure of writing for Discover Nikkei, and my time with them over these 5 years has been greatly rewarding. This month’s contribution marks my 100th article that I have written for the site. As I look forward to many more years of sharing stories here, I thought it would be nice to offer some reflections about the work of writing a column, and how my time with Discover Nikkei has shaped my journey as …
Revisiting the Canon: A Review of Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung's anthology The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration
Oct. 21, 2024 • Jonathan van Harmelen
In 2022, I received an email from my friend Frank Abe, informing me that he and Floyd Cheung had undertaken on a long-term project compiling an anthology on the literature of the incarceration. Intrigued, I waited to see what Frank and Floyd would produce. After two years, the highly anticipated project is now complete, and has been published under the title The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration. The book follows in the footsteps of several anthologies about the camp experience, …
Narratives of Resilience and Resistance—Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung on The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration — Part 2
Oct. 8, 2024 • Jonathan van Harmelen
Read Part 1 Jonathan van Harmelen (JVH): One thing I noticed about the government edicts is that they serves as kind of timeline or individual markers that anchors each section. Frank Abe (FA): Yeah, amazing, isn't it? At first I resisted the idea of including Executive Order 9066 and the exclusion order and the questionnaire. But when Floyd and I met with our editor, Elda Rotor, the executive Vice President of Penguin Classics, she thought it would be helpful for …
Narratives of Resilience and Resistance—Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung on The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration — Part 1
Oct. 7, 2024 • Jonathan van Harmelen
In May 2024, Penguin Classics published The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration. Edited by Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung, the anthology offers a comprehensive collection of literature on the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. For those who have followed recent publications on the camps, Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung should be familiar names. Abe is the lead author of the graphic novel We Hereby Refuse and a co-editor with Cheung and Greg Robinson on John Okada: …
Remembering Gene Oishi: The Bard of Guadalupe
Aug. 8, 2024 • Jonathan van Harmelen
On Thursday, August 1, 2024, author and journalist Gene Oishi passed away at 91. Oishi was a critically acclaimed writer, known both for his memoir In Search of Hiroshi and his novel Fox Drum Bebop, both of which captured powerfully the psychological trauma of anti-Asian racism and wartime Japanese American incarceration. Before becoming an author, Oishi had a long, remarkable career as a correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, reporting on local politics and international affairs for the paper’s European bureau. …
How Congress Killed the Kiln, But Not the Artist—Minnie Negoro and the Heart Mountain Pottery Plant
June 12, 2024 • Jonathan van Harmelen
As part of my ongoing research on Congress and the incarceration of Japanese Americans, I have found several examples of pressure tactics used by Congress to influence the U.S. Army and the War Relocation Authority’s policies towards Japanese Americans. Perhaps the most famous examples are the House Un-American Activities Committee’s series of investigations into the WRA and Dillon Myer. In other cases, members of Congress proposed legislation to respond to the complaints of their constituents. Regardless of whether the legislation …
Catching Up with Journalist and Author Gene Oishi about In Search of Hiroshi, a Groundbreaking Memoir in Its Exploration in the Psychological Analysis of Nisei Identity
May 17, 2024 • Jonathan van Harmelen
An outstanding and innovative Nisei writer, Gene Oishi, has movingly portrayed the trauma of the wartime incarceration of the Japanese American community. Born in 1933 in the small farming town of Guadalupe, California, Oishi grew up within a small yet vibrant Japanese American community in the heart of California. Following Executive Order 9066 and the ensuing incarceration, the community disappeared, with the Oishi family losing their prized farm. Oishi and his family spent the war years incarcerated at the Gila …
The 1944 Election: The Twilight of the Demagogues—Part 2
April 8, 2024 • Jonathan van Harmelen
Read Part 1 >> For Japanese Americans observing the election, the use of race-baiting elicited anger and, at times, a darkly comedic response. As Natasha Varner of Densho explains in her 2016 article about absentee voting in camp, Japanese American inmates still faced several bureaucratic hurdles from election boards two years after the 1942 election that made voting from camp difficult if not impossible. Larry Tajiri of the Pacific Citizen offered regular, insightful commentary to readers. Tajiri predicted that voters …
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