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3 articles
Home in the West (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Evils of racism, Individual versus society, Injustice, Loss of innocence, Totalitarianism
- Widely available
Short story recounting the return to California by Hirosho Yugi and his wife after their incarceration at Heart Mountain . His initial happiness is dulled when a group of neighbors try to force him out, first by burning down a shed and throwing rocks through windows, then by the burning down of their house. The day after their house is torched, they receive a telegram informing them of the death of their son in combat in Italy.
Nakamura Comes Home (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Evils of racism, Injustice, Totalitarianism
- Widely available
Short story about the return of a Nisei veteran to his California hometown by Henry H. Hayden. Kido Nakamura, with his chest full of medals and a limp due to a war wound, returns to Bonneville, where he had grown up as an orphan, and been on his own since age fourteen, until his forced removal to Tanforan . From camp, he joined the 442nd and served in Europe. He stops first at the hotel where he used to live and work, but a former co-worker tells him that the new owners are unwelcoming. He walks through he town, seeing racist signs, tangible evidence of anti-Japanese sentiment. Walking out to a farm he thinks he can get a job at, he is harassed by drunks and ponders his future in the town.
Welcome Home! (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Evils of racism, Injustice, Totalitarianism
- Widely available
Short story that contrasts the reception of two returning soldiers to their homes after serving overseas. Two soldiers meet on a train and talk about what they look forward to upon returning home. The first, presumably white, gets off the train to a warm welcome by parents, a girlfriend and the family pet. The second, a Japanese American has no one waiting for him, since his family is still incarcerated in an Arizona concentration camp. He is ignored or greeted coldly by the locals in his hometown and when he gets to his family home, finds that it has been vandalized and painted with racist epithets. Authored by Sgt. Len Zinberg, Welcome Home! was first published in Yank , a weekly magazine published by the U.S. Army and reprinted in the Pacific Citizen in 1945.