Browse > Genre > Memoir

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White Road of Thorns: Journalist's Diary—Trials and Tribulations of the Japanese American Internment During World War II (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Evils of racism, Facing darkness, Will to survive
Available

Wartime diary of Issei journalist and Japanese language school teacher Hisa Aoki that covers the period prior to her return to Japan on the second voyage of the Gripsholm . Originally published in Japan in 1953, it was translated into English by Archie Miyamoto at the behest of Aoki's elder daughter, Mary Yoko Nakamura.

An Internment Odyssey: Haisho Tenten (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Immigrant experience, Nationalism – complications, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Will to survive
Widely available

An Internment Odyssey: Haisho Tenten is the third book in a series published by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i and University of Hawai'i Press of a Hawai'i inmate's account of their incarceration experience during World War II. It represents a critical addition to Japanese American history as it provides the perspective of an Issei from Hawai'i who authorities incarcerated at multiple sites in the Islands and the mainland. The author, Kumaji Furuya , thus gives voice to some of the experiences faced by the 1,320 inmates from Hawai'i who like Furuya were often separated from their families for the duration of the war.

And Then a Rainbow (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Evils of racism, Role of women, Will to survive, Working class struggles
Limited availability

Memoir by a Nisei woman who renounces her citizenship at Tule Lake and lives in Japan for thirteen years before returning to the U.S.

And There Are Stories, There Are Stories (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Coming of age, Coming of age, Power of the past, Self – inner and outer
Available

Prose poem memoir by Momoko Iko that traces her family's journey out of the concentration camps and her subsequent upbringing away from Japanese American communities on the West Coast. She begins with her birth in 1940 to Issei parents, her fleeting recollections of her family's incarceration, and life after the war, first in Philadelphia, then Chicago . Various stories centering on racism, racial identity, interracial relations, and the legacy of the camps in the 1950s and 1960s follow, tracing the narrator's journey to becoming a writer.

American in Disguise (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Identity crisis, Wisdom of experience
Available

American in Disguise is Daniel Okimoto's account of his search for identity in America and Japan. The book was originally published in 1971 by John Weatherhill, Inc, with a foreword by James Michener.

By the Hands of a Working Man: A Japanese Background, a Mexican Childhood, an American Life (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 7-8
Memoir
Coming of age, Companionship as salvation, Displacement, Forgiveness, Identity crisis
Available

Nisei landscape architect shares his life story, from his childhood in Mexico to his years working in Los Angeles-area nurseries to his wartime experiences in Manzanar and Illinois.

Betrayed Trust: The Story of a Deported Issei and His American-Born Family During World War II (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Adult
Memoir
Coming of age, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Heartbreak of betrayal, Identity crisis, Immigrant experience, Losing hope
Available

A Nisei shares his family's heart-wrenching experience of wartime incarceration and the complex background behind their decision to go to Japan instead of staying in the U.S. after the end of the war.

Beyond Loyalty: The Story of a Kibei (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Adult
Memoir
Evils of racism, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Individual versus society, Role of Religion – virtue or hypocrisy, Self – inner and outer
Widely available

Memoir of Kibei scholar Minoru Kiyota (1923–2013) that focuses on the difficult World War II years that saw him incarcerated in American concentration camps and eventually renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Originally published as a Japanese language autobiographical novel in 1990, it was translated and reworked into an English language memoir published in 1997 by the University of Hawai'i Press.

Bend with the Wind: The Life, Family, and Writings of Grace Eto Shibata (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Circle of life, Family – blessing or curse, Female roles, Power of tradition
Available

Memoir of a Nisei woman—though written in the third person—that covers a nearly one hundred year history of a prominent San Luis Obispo area farming family and that ends with the author's graduation from college at age seventy-four.

Birth of an Activist: The Sox Kitashima Story (book)

Books
Memoir
Coming of age, Death - inevitable or tragedy, Empowerment, Importance of community
Available

A renowned redress activist shares her life story, including how the humiliating experience of wartime incarceration helped shape her later involvement in political activism.

Blue Skies and Thunder: Farm Boy, Pilot, Inventor, TSA Officer, and WWII Soldier of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (book)

Books
Memoir
Coming of age, Death - inevitable or tragedy, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Facing reality, Family - blessing or curse, Injustice, Loss of innocence, Overcoming - fear, weakness, vice, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
Available

Mixed race Nisei shares his story, from a tough childhood growing up on a farm in the Midwest to his experiences in combat with the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion during World War II.

Child Prisoner in American Concentration Camps (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 7-8
Memoir
Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Working class struggles
Available

Memoir of a childhood spent in American concentration camps by a Nisei educator and activist from Seattle.

Children of the Atomic Bomb: An American Physician's Memoirs of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and the Marshall Islands

Books
Memoir
Available

A Japanese American pediatrician reflects on his lifelong involvement with studying the effects of radiation on children, while also recalling his and his family's experiences during World War II.

Caucasian Boy at a Japanese Camp (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 7-8
Memoir
Coming of age, Companionship as salvation, Displacement
Available

The son of the superintendent of schools at Tule Lake concentration camp recounts his experiences as a young boy there.

Some Lines for a Younger Brother... (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Death – inevitable or tragedy, Disillusionment and dreams, Growing up – pain or pleasure
Limited availability

First person recollection of the author's younger brother centering on the impact the World War II incarceration had on him. The youngest of eight children, Tets was doted on by his older siblings, but devastated when his father died when he was eight. A few years later, he had become a demoralized teenager in Manzanar who began skipping high school classes upon his return to Los Angeles after the war. Joining the army to see the world, he is almost at the end of his hitch when the Korean War breaks out. Sent into combat, he is killed in action. Years later, the author recalls attending the first Manzanar Pilgrimage and seeing the image of Tets as a child once again.

Silver Like Dust (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Power of the past, Role of women
Widely available

Memoir published in 2011 centering on the author's grandmother, who slowly tells the author the story of her life and incarceration at Heart Mountain , over the course of several visits with the author. Her grandmother's detailed narrative from the perspective of a young woman of twenty when the war breaks out—the happy childhood in Los Angeles, the shock of war and forced removal, meeting her husband at the Pomona Assembly Center , marrying in camp, and having her first child there, before resettling in Seabrook Farms , New Jersey—is contrasted with the author's vastly different life as a contemporary young woman of roughly the same age when she begins the project. Having grown up in Pennsylvania, apart from her grandmother in Florida, the visits also allow the two women to really get to know each other for the first time. The book includes various brief historical snippets that provide …

Sleeping on Potatoes: A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower (book)

Books
Memoir
Coming of age, Desire to escape, Displacement, Facing reality, Overcoming - fear, weakness, vice, Social mobility
Limited availability

Memoir of a Nisei, from his early childhood as the son of a violent father and a loving mother, his experience incarcerated at Manzanar , his career as a successful physicist at Honeywell, and his years after retiring.

Song of Anger: Tales of Tule Lake (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Darkness and light, Displacement, Injustice
Available

Reflections and observations of a social worker in Tule Lake segregation center during World War II.

Sideways: Memoir of a Misfit (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Coming of age, Convention and rebellion, Family – blessing or curse, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Available

Memoir of a young Nisei woman who was born in the Minidoka , Idaho, concentration camp. The story focuses on her often strained relationships with her parents, grandparents, and eight siblings in 1950s Chicago.

The Block Manager: A True Story of Love in the Midst of Japanese American Internment Camps (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Self-preservation, Displacement
Available

Incarceration memoir of a Nisei woman from Stockton, California, who becomes a block manager at the Stockton and Rohwer detention camps and who meets and marries her husband at the latter. The narrative follow the couple to Tule Lake and postwar Japan.

Though I Be Crushed: The Wartime Experiences of a Buddhist Minister (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Displacement, Immigrant experience, Injustice
Limited availability

Translated memoir of an Issei Buddhist priest focusing on his wartime incarceration at several camps.

I Call to Remembrance: Toyo Suyemoto's Years of Internment (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Rights - individual or societal, Motherhood, Displacement
Widely available

The memoir of poet Toyo Suyemoto that spans her years of incarceration in Tanforan Assembly Center and later, at Topaz in Utah, from spring 1942 to late autumn 1945. The book, published in 2007 by Rutgers University Press, focuses on the quotidian life in an American concentration camp, while coping both physically and psychologically with the brutality of imprisonment behind barbed wire. The book is dedicated to Suyemoto's son Kay and details his short life from birth in Berkeley, California, to his first steps at Tanforan in a crowded horse stall, and finally to Utah where he developed a serious asthmatic condition and pneumonia in the harsh atmosphere of camp which eventually lead to his premature death. Suyemoto's memoir includes the impact of policies and wartime decisions on her family and the larger Japanese American community, bringing insight on complex and controversial questions of loyalty, citizenship and resistance. She also …

In Search of Hiroshi (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Family – blessing or curse, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past
Available

Memoir by Nisei journalist Gene Oishi published by Charles E. Tuttle in 1988.

The Invisible Thread (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Memoir, Children's
Immigrant experience, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Expression through art, Facing darkness, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Widely available

Memoir for young adult readers by the acclaimed children's book author that covers her charmed childhood in Berkeley, California, and her wartime incarceration during World War II.

Issei and Nisei: The Internment Years (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Displacement, Importance of community, Role of religion - value or hypocrisy
Available

Memoir of a young Issei Episcopal clergyman based in Washington state during the trying years of World War II. Published in the fall of 1967, Daisuke Kitagawa 's account was among the first book-length first-person accounts of the Japanese American incarceration.

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