One Book, One Coast: "They Called Us Enemy"

-

 



Soundside is a radio show and podcast about the Pacific Northwest, produced in Seattle by KUOW. There I heard a story about "One Book, One Coast" which intrigued me—"Seattle Public Library is one of 140 library systems up and down the West Coast joining in the 'One Book, One Coast' program. Dubbed the “largest book club on the West Coast,” the program is uniting libraries to explore an often erased chapter: When more than 110,000 Americans with Japanese ancestry (mostly in our region) were imprisoned in incarceration camps during World War II. The club’s first book pick: “They Called Us Enemy," according to their daily newsletter. 

Links led to https://www.spl.org/programs-and-services/authors-and-books/one-book-one-coast where I navigated to King County Library System to check out the book, They Called Us Enemy by George Takei. Not only have I loved Takei for years, beginning with his role as Sulu on Star Trek, but my father had personal experience with the imprisonment of many of his Japanese Garfield High School classmates after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. 

Finding and checking out a digital copy of the book was easy and free. KCLS uses an app called hoopla to download and display the graphic novel. I found the book riveting, and could hardly break myself away from the screen. Takei experienced it all as a little boy, and many of his memories are joyful. As the war intensified, however, and the family was moved from one camp to another, the view became darker, and the world more dangerous. 


Takei's father explaining the imprisonment, page 45


Because George continued to listen to his parents and enrich his story with their perspectives, I found this book really powerful. It begins with family history, and also is a personal experience of a part of American history too often forgotten. 

I plan now to also listen to the podcast Burn Order which goes into some of the recently uncovered history behind the crafting of the policy which imprisoned Takei, his family, and so many other innocents.


Valorie Zimmerman

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~





Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Family Bible

-
Image
  DID YOU INHERIT A FAMILY BIBLE? Surprises! My parents had an interesting way of getting rid of “things” as they aged. I lived with my family in the Puget Sound area. My parents lived in eastern Washington, so when they came to visit us, it was usually several days, or at least overnight. The first thing I remember “finding” was an unfinished piece of needlepoint that I remembered hanging around my parents’ home for years. I recognized the box as soon as I saw it under the bed in the guest room. The next time I talked with my Mother, I asked her about it, but a funny thing, she knew nothing about what I was talking about. I learned to do needlepoint and finished the piece. My husband refinished an old dressing table bench, which had also come from my parents’  home, and we mounted the needlepoint.   The bench now resides in my son’s home. I did not leave it as a “surprise” for him to find. The next “surprise” I found in my ...
Read more

Power Your Memories: Tell the Stories!

-
Image
Iron lung, St Bartholomew's Hospital, London: a patient inside a Drinker respirator, attended to by a nurse and a doctor. Photograph, ca 1930.  Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) Valorie: While listening to the news about recent controversy concerning vaccines, I thought of my uncle, who died a few years back. When I was young, he was infected with polio. According to my cousin, doctors have said he was actually infected twice, with two different polio strains. He was deathly ill for many months and in an "iron lung" for a while. Although he mostly recovered and was able to work, travel and have a wonderful long life, he was never free of polio even at the end of his life.  I asked my husband if he had ever known someone with polio, and he said that a kid in his neighborhood was infected and paralyzed. He eventually was able to walk wearing braces. This was  frighteningly  common until the polio vaccines were finally available after thorough testing. It was co...
Read more

Finding Your Pre-1850 Ancestors

-
Image
William McBee (Mackbey) with Louisa Smith, and at bottom, their daughter Martha Jane, with other relatives. ✪ Why is 1850 so important in US research? Because this is the first year each person in the US Census was named, and both age and birthplace  usually  noted. From 1790 through 1840, the US Census named only free heads of household, usually (but not always) the oldest man. The rest are divided by age groups and assigned tick marks. Before 1870, enslaved and some other non-White persons were also noted separately. Good News! Is this a terrible obstacle? Fortunately not, because as we travel up the tree from the present to the past, clues are found in many records which can lead to finding the parents, even when men married multiple women with the same name. Fortunately, most of us are already using the best strategy to find more distant ancestors, but we will need to focus on details to get the most out of our work.  There is an excellent talk by Julia Anderson...
Read more