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Suma Sugi Yokotake – The Woman Who Became The First Japanese American Lobbyist - Part 2
Jonathan van Harmelen
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Suma Sugi Yokotake – The Woman Who Became The First Japanese American Lobbyist - Part 1
Jonathan van Harmelen
One of the greatest accomplishments of the Japanese American Citizens League has been its success in lobbying Congress to enact legislation to support Japanese Americans and other Asian American groups. Long before the Redress movement of the 1980s, the JACL recognized the importance of Congressional action as a means of …
The House I Live In: Frank Sinatra and Japanese Americans
Jonathan van Harmelen
Archival research is often like gambling; either you get boxes of files that either contain golden information for your project, or a stack of dusty files that make you wonder if you wasted a day of work. And, sometimes, you come across a story you do not expect to find …
A Circus in Tulare: The Story of Congressman Alfred Elliott and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans — Part 2
Jonathan van Harmelen
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A Circus in Tulare: The Story of Congressman Alfred Elliott and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans — Part 1
Jonathan van Harmelen
As part of my ongoing dissertation research on Congress and the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, I have come across vignettes in several archives that illustrate the influential role played by members of Congress. While perhaps the most visible actions taken by Congress regarding Japanese Americans were holding public hearings …
A New Look at Nisei Veterans: Lawrence Matsuda and Matt Sasaki’s Fighting for America
Jonathan van Harmelen
In recent years, Chin Music Press has produced a great run of graphic novels on the wartime Japanese American experience. These include Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura’s collaboration with illustrators Matt Sasaki and Ross Ishikawa on We Hereby Refuse, and the partnership of Kiku Hughes and Ken Mochizuki on Those …
Continental Drift: How anti-Japanese sentiment in Australia affected Nikkei Communities in the US and Canada
Jonathan van Harmelen
During World War II, Japanese communities around the Pacific rim and elsewhere were subjected to displacement, internment, or incarceration. While the case of the West Coast of the United States is the most well-known, several nations hastily developed their own incarceration policies based on the assumption that Japanese communities, regardless …
Keeping the Beat: The Story of Legendary Drummer Paul Togawa
Jonathan van Harmelen
As part of my ongoing series on Japanese American jazz musicians, I now turn to the fascinating story of Paul Togawa. Although most of the previous musicians I have showcased were all Nisei born in the 1920s, Togawa was a rare exception as a postwar Nisei who developed a successful …
Artist and Documentarian: The Life of Kango Takamura
Jonathan van Harmelen, Greg Robinson
What images come to mind when we think of the wartime experience of Japanese Americans? For many, the photographs produced by Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams or Toyo Miyatake come to mind, with their unique portrayals of the human condition. Yet equally powerful and moving are the representations of the incarceration …
A Northern Lesson: Carey McWilliams and the Incarceration of Japanese Canadians
Jonathan van Harmelen
The incarceration of Nikkei communities across the Pacific world in 1942 represents one of the most notable examples acts of transnational racial exclusion. Indeed, despite the relatively small sizes of the communities affected—120,000 in the United States, 22,000 in Canada—as compared to the total population of those countries, the forced …