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Contemporary Asian American Activism

Building Movements for Liberation

By Diane C. Fujino, Robyn Magalit Rodriguez

In the struggles for prison abolition, global anti-imperialism, immigrant rights, affordable housing, environmental justice, fair labor, and more, twenty-first-century Asian American activists are speaking out and standing up to systems of oppression. Creating emancipatory futures...

Signs of Home

The Paintings and Wartime Diary of Kamekichi Tokita

By Barbara Johns. Foreword by Stephen H. Sumida

This beautiful and poignant biography of Issei artist Kamekichi Tokita uses his paintings and wartime diary to vividly illustrate the experiences, uncertainties, joys, and anxieties of Japanese Americans during the World War II internment and...

Becoming Nisei

Japanese American Urban Lives in Prewar Tacoma

By Lisa M. Hoffman and Mary L. Hanneman

Tacoma’s vibrant Nihonmachi of the 1920s and '30s was home to a significant number of first generation Japanese immigrants and their second generation American children, and these families formed tight-knit bonds despite their diverse religious,...

The Unsung Great

Stories of Extraordinary Japanese Americans

By Greg Robinson

From a title-winning boxer in Louisiana to a Broadway baritone in New York, Japanese Americans have long belied their popular representation as “quiet Americans.” Showcasing the lives and achievements of relatively unknown but remarkable people...

Asians in Colorado

A History of Persecution and Perseverance in the Centennial State

By William Wei

Providing the most comprehensive examination to date of Asians in the Centennial State, William Wei addresses a wide range of experiences, from anti-Chinese riots in late nineteenth-century Denver to the World War II incarceration of...

John Okada

The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy

By Frank Abe, Greg Robinson, Floyd Cheung

No-No Boy, John Okada’s only published novel, centers on a Japanese American who refuses to fight for the country that incarcerated him and his people in World War II and, upon release from federal prison...

Storied Lives

Japanese American Students and World War II

By Gary Y. Okihiro. Afterword by Leslie A. Ito

During World War II over 5,500 young Japanese Americans left the concentration camps to which they had been confined with their families in order to attend college. Storied Lives describes—often in their own words—how nisei...

Enduring Conviction

Fred Korematsu and His Quest for Justice

By Lorraine K. Bannai

Fred Korematsu’s decision to resist F.D.R.’s Executive Order 9066, which provided authority for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, was initially the case of a young man following his heart: he wanted...

Altered Lives, Enduring Community

Japanese Americans Remember Their World War II Incarceration

By Stephen S. Fugita and Marilyn Fernandez

Altered Lives, Enduring Community examines the long-term effects on Japanese Americans of their World War II experiences: forced removal from their Pacific Coast homes, incarceration in desolate government camps, and ultimate resettlement. As part of...

Paper Bullets

A Fictional Autobiography

By Kip Fulbeck

Award-winning videomaker, performance artist, and pop-culture provocateur Kip Fulbeck has captivated audiences worldwide with his mixture of high
comedy and personal narrative. In Paper Bullets, his first novel, Fulbeck taps into his Cantonese, English, Irish, and...

Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence

Coming Home to Hood River

By Linda Tamura

Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence is a compelling story of courage, community, endurance, and reparation. It shares the experiences of Japanese Americans (Nisei) who served in the U.S. Army during World War II, fighting on...

A Principled Stand

The Story of Hirabayashi v. United States

By Gordon K. Hirabayashi. With James A. Hirabayashi and Lane Ryo Hirabayashi

In 1943, University of Washington student Gordon Hirabayashi defied the curfew and mass removal of Japanese Americans on the West Coast, and was subsequently convicted and imprisoned as a result. In A Principled Stand, Gordon's...

Judgment Without Trial

Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II

By Tetsuden Kashima

2004 Washington State Book Award Finalist

Judgment without Trial reveals that long before the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government began making plans for the eventual internment and later incarceration of the Japanese American...

Shopping at Giant Foods

Chinese American Supermarkets in Northern California

By Alfred Yee

From the 1930s through the 1970s, Chinese American owned supermarkets located outside of Chinatown, catering to a non-Chinese clientele, and featuring mainstream American foods and other products and services rose to prominence and phenomenal success...

Born in Seattle

The Campaign for Japanese American Redress

By Robert Sadamu Shimabukuro

The story of the World War II internment of 120,000 Japanese American citizens and Japanese-born permanent residents is well known by now. Less well known is the history of the small group of Seattle activists...

Letters from the 442nd

The World War II Correspondence of a Japanese American Medic

By Minoru Masuda. Edited by Hana Masuda and Dianne W. Bridgman. Foreword by Daniel K. Inouye

This is the first collection of letters by a member of the legendary 442nd Combat Team, which served in Italy and France during World War II. Written to his wife by a medic serving with...

Phoenix Eyes and Other Stories

By Russell Charles Leong

Russell Charles Leong shows an astonishing range in this new collection of stories. From struggling war refugees to monks, intellectuals to sex workers, his characters are both linked and separated by their experiences as modern...

Cities of Others

Reimagining Urban Spaces in Asian American Literature

By Xiaojing Zhou

Asian American literature abounds with complex depictions of American cities as spaces that reinforce racial segregation and prevent interactions across boundaries of race, culture, class, and gender. However, in Cities of Others, Xiaojing Zhou uncovers...

Growing Up Brown

Memoirs of a Filipino American

By Peter M. Jamero, Sr.. Foreword by Dorothy Laigo Cordova. Introduction by Peter Bacho. Afterword by Fred Cordova

"I may have been like other boys, but there was a major difference -- my family included 80 to 100 single young men residing in a Filipino farm-labor camp. It was as a ‘campo’ boy...

Imprisoned Apart

The World War II Correspondence of an Issei Couple

By Louis Fiset. Foreword by Roger Daniels

“Please don’t cry,” wrote Iwao Matsushita to his wife Hanaye, telling her he was to be interned for the duration of the war. He was imprisoned in Fort Missoula, Montana, and she was incarcerated at...