Browse > Place > Orange County, California
2 articles
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 …
Reluctant Samurai: Memoirs of an Urban Planner (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Family – blessing or curse, Fulfillment, Importance of community, Progress – real or illusion
- Limited availability
Memoir by a Nisei man that recounts his agricultural upbringing, his time in American concentration camps, and his postwar career as an urban planner who was a key figure in the redevelopment of downtown Los Angeles.