Browse > Genre > Fiction
44 articles
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The Floating World (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Coming of age, Family – blessing or curse, Female roles, Working class struggles, Growing up – pain or pleasure
- Widely available
Acclaimed coming-of-age novel largely set on the road centering on Olivia Osaka and her itinerant family in the 1950s.
Gasa-Gasa Girl (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction, Mystery
- Family – blessing or curse, Greed as downfall, Power of the past
- Widely available
The second mystery novel in Naomi Hirahara's "Mas Arai Mysteries" series, Gasa-Gasa Girl finds the Kibei crime solver in New York where he reconciles with his estranged daughter and unravels the mysterious death of a wealthy Nisei businessman.
Homecoming (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Love and sacrifice, Motherhood, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Short story by Toshio Mori about an Issei woman's first visit with her son Mamoru after he has been severely wounded in combat as a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team . "Homecoming" takes the form of a story told in the woman's first person voice to her grandchildren. It is one of several stories by Mori featuring the same woman published in the Pacific Citizen between 1949 and 1952 that later became the basis of his novel Woman from Hiroshima , published in 1978. The first half of the story is about her efforts to see her son after being allowed to leave Topaz to return to the West Coast . She is at first dismayed to learn that he has been moved to a military hospital in Auburn, California, known to be a hotbed of anti-Japanese racism. Arriving in Auburn, they see numerous anti-Japanese signs and are …
Heiji (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Female roles, Injustice, Power of the past
- No availability
Short story by Jeff Tsuyoshi Matsuda about a disheveled elderly Nisei widower who goes to a empty field in his Westchester, California, neighborhood every day for reasons that no one can figure out. In slowly revealing the reason for his quest, Heiji Taguma's wartime family history is revealed. His family had farmed twenty acres in the area before the war, but lost their crops and their farm in the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Heiji's father Masu was among the Issei arrested by the FBI and was taken to the Bismarck , North Dakota internment camp, eventually rejoining his family at Manzanar . But he returned a broken man: while Heiji resettled in Chicago , he refused to leave Manzanar and died there just after the end of the war. Heiji's odd ritual seemed to have been triggered by the death of his wife Keiko, who …
America's Betrayal (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8
- Fiction, History
- Coming of age, Companionship as salvation, Everlasting love, Evils of racism, Female roles, Losing hope, Will to survive
- Limited availability
Young adult novel by Jodi Icenoggle written in the first person voice of Margaret Yamaguchi, a high school sophomore and aspiring writer in Valle Verde in coastal California. Her father runs a successful orchard and oversees a happy family that includes Margaret's mother, an older brother Robert, and younger brother Timmy. She has also started going steady with John Wilson, star athlete of Valle Verde High. But her happy life is slowly torn apart by the outbreak of war. As anti-Japanese sentiment rises after the attack on Pearl Harbor, so do tensions at the high school, particularly for an interracial couple like John and Margaret. Inevitably, the Yamaguchis get sent first to the Salinas Assembly Center , then to Poston , while John gets drafted. As family tragedies ensue, Margaret comes of age in the concentration camp, starting a camp newspaper and waiting for John to come back. But will …
A Question of Loyalty/The Betrayed (play)
- Plays
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Limited availability
Play authored by Nisei playwright Hiroshi Kashiwagi set in Tule Lake and centered on the dilemmas brought on by the loyalty questionnaire . The main characters are Tak Fujimoto, a country boy loosely based on the playwright, and Grace Tamura, a sophisticated city girl from Seattle, who fall in love in the concentration camp. But they are divided by the loyalty questions and go their separate ways. The play's second act is set forty years later, when Grace, a widowed redress activist from Chicago, visits Tak, a divorced farmer in Fresno, prior to a camp reunion.
Reunion (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Lost love, Rebirth, Reunion
- No availability
Short story by Hisaye Yamamoto centering on a Nisei man named Tak who attends a pilgrimage to Poston , where he had been incarcerated during the war. The story begins with his noticing a striking woman at the reunion dressed in buckskin; he wonders if she is Native American. A visit to the memorial at the site conjures memories of his family's wartime experience: removed from Los Angeles, they left Poston to resettle in Chicago ; his older sister had left earlier on her own to study nursing in Cleveland. He went to high school in Chicago and to college back in Los Angeles, eventually marrying and raising three daughters. But after his wife's death just a year prior, he found himself alone. On the bus ride home, he is surprised to find the buckskin woman on the same bus. She sits across the aisle from him, and he overhears …
Sayonara Slam (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction, Mystery
- Power of silence, Power of the past, Family – blessing or curse
- Widely available
The sixth book in Naomi Hirahara's Mas Arai Mysteries series finds the Kibei gardener caught up in unraveling the mysterious death of a Japanese journalist covering the World Baseball Classic in Los Angeles. As in the other books in the series, Mas's Hiroshima hibakusha past and the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans play key roles in the plot.
Time of Decay (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Desire to escape, Family—blessing or curse, Loneliness as destructive force, Losing hope
- Widely available
Short story by Ferris Takahashi of an Issei woman whose family puts her in a cold nursing home against her will at the end of her life. Told from the perspective of the woman, she recalls her forced removal and incarceration in unspecified concentration camps and other episodes in her life.
The Travelers (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Desire to escape, Optimism – power or folly, Power of silence
- Widely available
Short story by Toshio Mori centering on two groups of inmates as they leave Topaz . One group of nine are those leaving the camp permanently to " resettle " in areas outside the restricted area of the West Coast; the other group consists of those who are visiting town briefly to shop or to see off relatives before returning to the camp. Those leaving for good includes a soldier leaving for the battlefront and being seen off by his mother, as well as those leaving for jobs in cities such as New York and Chicago . As the resettlers exchange information about their destinations, the soldier is drawn to an attractive young woman heading to Chicago, but does not speak to her. After the train leaves, a white family offers a ride to town to the mother of the soldier. "The Travelers" originally appeared in the Topaz literary publication …
Two Nails, One Love (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction, Gay and Lesbian
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Family – blessing or curse, Individual versus society, Power of the past
- Widely available
Short novel told in the first-person voice of Ethan Taniguchi, a Sansei musician living in New York City in the year 2000, centering on the visit of his estranged mother from Hawai'i. Throughout his life—but particularly after the death of his beloved father—Ethan has felt distant from his mother, whom he feels is too bound by arcane Japanese tradition and who hasn't supported his being gay and his pursuing a career as a musician. But learning the details of her wartime incarceration story—her father had been interned and their family had been deported to Japan on the M.S. Gripsholm as part of a civilian exchange—and her quest for reparations via the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 changes the dynamic between them.
When the World Winds Down (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Isolation, Lost love
- Limited availability
Short story by Sharon Hashimoto about a watch repairman who fixes a gold watch brought in by a young man who reminds him of his late brother. Fred Fujita is one of the last remaining Nisei businessmen in the old Japanese section of Seattle. Agreeing to fix the gold watch at the end of one day, he decides to work on it at home, observing that his late wife would have objected to his doing so. While working on the watch, he recalls his brother Jimmy—the night at Heart Mountain when the seventeen-year-old Jimmy tells him he is going to enlist, trying to talk him out of it, and receiving word that he is missing in action.
When Your Body Has Been Rolled in Thorns (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Evils of racism, Facing reality, Loss of innocence, Will to survive
- Widely available
Short story by Ferris Takahashi about a Japanese American family leaving a concentration camp to return to their old home in Los Angeles. Told from the perspective of a college educated Nisei husband and father of two young children, the story begins as they gather up their possessions and prepare to leave the camp. Yosh, a friend who had returned earlier and was able to reestablish his business, greets them at the train station. When they return to their home, they find it trashed and vandalized, with all the furniture gone. They also learn that the Buddhist temple in which they had stored other possessions had burned down. Yosh and his family offer to put them up until they can fix their house. Returning to look more closely at the house after dinner, the man and his Issei mother find racist graffiti. His mother assures him that they will rebound.
A Bridge Between Us (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Coming of age, Role of women
- Widely available
Critically acclaimed 1995 novel by Julie Shigekuni that is both a multi-generational family saga about a Japanese American family in San Francisco and a coming-of-age novel centered on a fifth-generation Japanese American woman growing up in a four generation household. The story—which includes the family's incarceration at Heart Mountain —is told from the perspectives of four women of different generations who live together in the family home in San Francisco.
Block Seventeen (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Power of the past, Power of silence, Technology in society – good or bad
- Widely available
Novel by Kimiko Guthrie set in 2012 written in the first-person voice of a mixed-race Sansei woman who is affected by the legacy of her family's wartime incarceration in ways she initially denies, but comes to understand over the course of the story.
Blood Hina (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction, Mystery
- Family – blessing or curse, Hazards of passing judgment, Heroism – real and perceived, Love and sacrifice
- Widely available
The fourth book in the Mas Arai Mysteries series by Naomi Hirahara finds the Kibei gardener coming to the aid of his best friend, Haruo Mukai, whose impending wedding is interrupted by accusations of theft and by his sudden disappearance.
California Generation (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Coming of age, Identity crisis
- Limited availability
Popular 1970 novel by Jacqueline Briskin that follows a group of students from the class of 1960 at fictitious California High—one of them a Sansei born in Topaz —through the touchstone events of the turbulent decade. Though a first novel, California Generation was widely promoted and launched Briskin's career as a best-selling novelist.
Snakeskin Shamisen (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction, Mystery
- Lost honor, Power of the past
- Widely available
The third novel in Naomi Hirahara's "Mas Arai Mysteries" series finds the gardener/detective back in Southern California in 2002 where he tackles a murder case in the Okinawan American community.
Shirley Temple, Hotcha-cha (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Displacement, Heartbreak of betrayal, Isolation, Wisdom of experience
- Available
Short story by Wakako Yamauchi about a Nisei strandee couple and their difficulties both in wartime Japan and in the resettlement era U.S. Told in the first-person voice of Mie, the story begins in 1939 when Mie is seventeen. As was the case for a sizable minority of Nisei youth, she had been sent to Japan for her education, having arrived there three years prior. She attends a boarding school and spends holidays with the Kodamas, a wealthy childless couple who are family friends. On a holiday, she meets Jobo Endo, a fellow Nisei, who is in Japan attending college. Courtship ensues. Recognizing the difficulties they would face in Japan as the war heats up, Jobo suggests that Mie ask the Kodamas for money to return to the U.S. However, the Kodamas had hoped to marry off Mie to a grand nephew. Though they consent to Jobo and Mie getting …
Slant-Eyed Americans (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Facing darkness, Losing hope
- Available
Short story by Toshio Mori set in the days after the Pearl Harbor attack . A young Nisei man's plans to take his mother to town that day are dashed by the outbreak of war. The next day, business at the flower market is slow, and the Japanese American merchants wonder about their future. Tom, a Nisei gardener friend, doesn't report to work out of despair over the war; the narrator and his family cheer him up. Later, the narrator's brother Kazuo, who is in the army, arrives home for a five-day furlough. At the end of his visit, the family sees him off, pondering the uncertainty of what is to come.
The Shoyu Kid (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Coming of age, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Illusion of power, Loss of innocence, Vulnerability of the meek
- Widely available
Short story by Lonny Kaneko set in Minidoka centering on three boys who chase and bully a fourth boy, in the process unearthing his molestation by a camp guard. The Seattle-based author had been incarcerated at Minidoka as a child. The Shoyu Kid was originally published in Amerasia Journal in 1976.
Strawberry Yellow (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction, Mystery
- Injustice
- Widely available
The fifth book in Naomi Hirahara's Mas Arai Mysteries series finds the Kibei gardener back in his hometown of Watsonville for the funeral of a relative. But the apparent murder of an anti-GMO activist and the suggestion by his widow that the deceased relative may have been murdered plunge Mas into another mystery.
Summer of the Big Bachi (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction, Mystery
- Facing darkness, Greed as downfall, Power of silence, Power of the past
- Widely available
Mystery novel by Naomi Hirahara that was the first to feature her Kibei hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) gardener protagonist Mas Arai.
The Black Dress (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Companionship as salvation, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Progress – real or illusion
- Limited availability
Short story about a young woman who has recently left Heart Mountain to resettle in New York City in 1945. Invited to a party by co-workers at a silk screen shop, she decides to buy a new dress for the party. At the department store, she impulsively asks the friendly young female sales clerks to join her for dinner that night. Though she immediately regrets asking, the evening leads to an unexpected revelation.
The Brothers Murata (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Family – blessing or curse, Nationalism – complications, Rights - individual or societal, Role of men
- Available
Novella by Toshio Mori about two brothers in Topaz who clash over the issue of military service. Likely written in Topaz, it was first published in the 2000 Mori anthology Unfinished Message: Selected Works of Toshio Mori .
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