Browse > Genre > Fiction
44 articles
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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (book)
- Books
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 6-8
- Fiction
- Family - blessing or curse, Growing up - pain or pleasure, Evils of racism, Lost love
- Widely available
Bestselling 2009 novel by Jamie Ford about a doomed romance between a young Chinese American boy and a Japanese American girl in 1942 Seattle.
Las Vegas Charley (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Disillusionment and dreams, Temptation and destruction, Vulnerability of the meek, Working class struggles
- Widely available
Short story by Hisaye Yamamoto about an Issei man named Kazuyuki Matsumoto, who works as a dishwasher at a Las Vegas restaurant while gambling away his wages. In flashback, we learn of his life story: boyhood in Kumamoto prefecture, then migration to the U.S. where he becomes a successful farmer in Santa Maria, California, and is soon joined by a "picture bride" wife, Haru and two sons. But Haru's death in childbirth after the birth of their second son changes Kazuyuki's life decisively. He sends the two boys to live with his mother in Japan and becomes a migrant laborer. At first, he sends regular remittances home, but he soon picks up a gambling habit and the payments gradually come to an end. He later brings his Kibei sons back to the U.S., where they start a new farming venture in Orange County, California, this one less successful. Then comes …
The Legend of Miss Sasagawara (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Female roles, Hazards of passing judgment, Individual versus society, Losing hope
- Widely available
Short story by Hisaye Yamamoto that takes place in an Arizona concentration camp during World War II and centers on the odd activities of one woman in the camp, as described by a college age female fellow inmate. Mari Sasagawara, a former ballet dancer, arrives with her Buddhist priest father upon transfer from another camp and soon becomes the subject of much gossip by other camp inmates for her regal bearing and aloofness. After being absent from the camp for a few months—taken to an institution in Phoenix—she returns a changed woman, friendly and sociable, even organizing and teaching a dance troupe of young girls. But after the narrator leaves the camp to attend school in Philadelphia, her friend tells her that Miss Sasagawara's malaise had returned and that she was taken out of the camp again. The story ends with the narrator finding a poem by Miss Sasagawara published …
A Letter (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Facing darkness, Isolation, Power of words
- Limited availability
Short story by Sasabune Sasaki about a group of Issei internees at an unspecified internment camp in the first days of their detention. Though the men write letters to their families, few have received any letters in return, due to, they believe, delays caused by censorship of the letters and their being moved from camp to camp. One day, the narrator sees a letter in its envelope tacked on a bulletin board at the camp post office and copies it down. It is an anonymously authored letter by a Nisei in English that expresses concern and support for the internees. When the narrator reads it to a group of internees, they are greatly moved.
The Long Journey and the Short Ride (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Darkness and light, Motherhood, Optimism – power or folly, Reunion
- Available
Seemingly autobiographical story by Toshio Mori about the author and his brother, a paralyzed veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team , recalling the latter's visit to Topaz prior to shipping out for combat in Europe. The author and his mother get a pass to leave Topaz for the first time since they had arrived in order to see the brother off at the train station. Their apprehensions about being outside the camp are eased by a white family—who had also just seen a son off to war—who offer them a ride to town. Shifting back to the present of the story, the author notes the successful recovery that his brother has made since the war and both brothers lament that neither of their parents lived to see that recovery. The same incident is the basis for another story Mori had written in 1943 titled " The Travelers ." "The …
The Loom (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Facing darkness, Loneliness as destructive force, Motherhood, Power of silence
- Widely available
Short story by R. A. Sasaki that portrays the life of a Nisei woman looking both backwards and forwards after the death of one of her daughters. Born and raised in San Francisco where her family ran a boarding house, the unnamed woman graduated from the University of California before being incarcerated with her family in Tanforan and Topaz during World War II. Returning to San Francisco after the war having married a Kibei man she had known from before the war, she has four daughters while her husband works in the flower industry. Devoted to her daughters, she is at a loss as they leave the house to pursue their own lives and after one dies in a mountain climbing accident. Her daughters' efforts to bring her out of her torpor are largely unsuccessful until one gives her a loom, through which she is able to express the feelings …
Makapuu Bay (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Disillusionment and dreams, Facing reality, Lost love, Names – power and significance, Reunion
- Widely available
Short story by Wakako Yamauchi about a divorced middle-aged Japanese American writer who goes to a literary conference in Honolulu where she runs into an old boyfriend from the war years. In flashback, we learn that Sachiko—nicknamed "Pinky" while incarcerated in Poston with her father—had met Mitch Ochiai at the camp swimming hole, where she asked him to teach her to swim. They become a couple and continue to see each other when she resettles in Chicago while he attends the Military Intelligence Service Language School in Minnesota. But her father's illness—and eventual death—forces her to return to Poston, while Mitch heads off to war, and they lose touch. Sachiko ends up marrying Joe Noda, her block manager, and settling in Los Angeles. Though Sachiko is divorced and Mitch has never married, a rekindling of the romance in Hawai'i is not to be.
The Man with the Bulging Pockets (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Fulfillment, Greed as downfall, Optimism – power or folly, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Short story by Toshio Mori centering on an old man at Tanforan who becomes enormously popular with children by passing out a seemingly limitless supply of candy to them on his daily walks around the camp. His actions and popularity inspire jealousy in another old man, who also begins passing out candy, while spreading bad stories about the first old man. The story originally appeared in the 1944 holiday edition of The Pacific Citizen and was republished in Mori's 1979 short story collection The Chauvinist and Other Stories and in slightly different from, as a part of his 1978 novel Woman from Hiroshima .
Manzanar Rites (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction, History
- Coming of age, Evils of racism, Rights - individual or societal, Vulnerability of the strong
- Limited availability
Coming of age novel by William Hohri about two teenage boys from West Los Angeles who end up at Manzanar with their families.
Maybe (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Capitalism – effect on the individual, Necessity of work, Will to survive, Working class struggles
- Widely available
Short story by Wakako Yamauchi about a middle-aged Japanese American woman working in a sweatshop with a group of undocumented immigrant workers from Latin America. Divorced after twenty-five years of marriage, Florence wanders into a garment factory with a help wanted sign and is hired on the spot and given a relatively responsible position despite her lack of qualifications due to what she thinks is the owners' stereotype about "Japanese." In her first person voice, she introduces various workers as well as the owner's much younger Colombian immigrant wife who takes an immediate disliking to her. She befriends a young couple who were forced to leave their young son back in Mexico and are unable to bring him to the U.S.; the husband semi-jokingly asks Florence to marry him so that he can get a green card. At the end of the story she recalls her and her family's confinement …
Mitsugi's Christmas (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Family – blessing or curse, Forgiveness, Love and sacrifice, Optimism – power or folly
- No availability
Short story by Jennifer "Emiko" Kuida about Mitsugi Yamamoto, an elderly widower at the Keiro Retirement Home in Los Angeles who waits to hear from his busy lawyer daughter and his grandchildren on Christmas Day. Julia, a younger Yonsei volunteer nurse, keeps him company sometimes and listens to his stories of the past, particularly his time at Seabrook Farms, New Jersey , where he and his wife Sumi moved after leaving Manzanar .
My Mother's Music (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Power of the past, Power of silence, Role of women
- Limited availability
Short story by Lydia Yuri Minatoya told from the perspective of a Sansei woman recalling her Kibei mother's various stories—and silences—about the family history. The narrator's mother recalls her Issei mother's banishment from the family after she had an affair with a Filipino immigrant patron of the family-run pool hall and how she never saw her mother again. The mother also recalls her own arranged marriage while in Heart Mountain , but can recall little—or is unwilling to talk about—details of her and her family's wartime incarceration. My Mother's Music appeared in the fifth volume of the Fusion series published by the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University. Minatoya later published a memoir titled Talking to High Monks in the Snow: An Asian-American Odyssey (1989)—which includes "My Mother's Music" as its first chapter—as well as a novel, The Strangeness of Beauty (2001).
The Old Man on Crutches (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Companionship as salvation, Power of words, Wisdom of experience
- Limited availability
Short story by Setsuko Nagata about the title character whom the narrator meets while serving as a waitress at a Tanforan Assembly Center mess hall. The man, named Mr. Mine, takes a liking to the narrator and shares Chinese poetry with her. When they move to the Topaz , Utah, concentration camp, he visits her on occasion, but when he requests repatriation, he moves to Tule Lake . The narrator hears that he eventually did return to his native Kumamoto, Japan.
Nurse (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Hazards of passing judgment
- Available
Short story by Masaharu Hane centering on an Issei man on a train in the Southwest during World War II. Spotting a Nisei young woman fellow passenger—one of the few "Japanese" on the train—sitting next to a white soldier, the narrator passes time on the trip by conjuring various unlikely scenarios that explain her travel circumstances, before learning the rather mundane truth. Originally published in a Poston Japanese language literary publication, "Nurse" was included in the 1991 literary anthology The Big Aiiieeeee!
Rosebud (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Desire to escape, Names – power and significance, Role of women, Social mobility
- Available
Short story by Wakako Yamauchi that traces the friendship and rivalry between the narrator and another Japanese American girl/woman from childhood in the 1930s through the incarceration period to old age. In the section that takes place at Poston , the narrator works for the Poston Chronicle while Marion is prohibited from working by her overprotective mother until she suffers a nervous breakdown. Later, Marion marries a prominent non-Japanese American economist and largely lives her life outside the ethnic community.
Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire (book)
- Books
- Adult
- Fiction
- Coming of age, Dangers of ignorance, Power of silence, Power of the past
- Widely available
First novel by acclaimed poet and memoirist David Mura that explores the impact of wartime incarceration—and the silences about it—on a Japanese American family in Chicago after World War II.
21st Century Manzanar (book)
- Books
- Adult
- Fiction
- Evils of racism, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Will to survive
- Available
Novel by Perry Miyake that imagines an early 21st century roundup of Japanese Americans and how Sansei and Yonsei would react to it.
Home Again (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Character - destruction and building up, Displacement, Evils of racism
- Available
A 1955 novel authored by a former War Relocation Authority (WRA) official that tells the epic story of one Japanese American family from California, covering their prewar travails, their wartime incarceration, and their return to California after the war. The book was heavily promoted particularly within the Japanese American community and widely reviewed.
City in the Sun (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Displacement, Evils of racism
- Limited availability
1946 novel by Karon Kehoe that represented the first full-length work of adult fiction to dramatize Japanese American confinement.
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