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Review Essay
JAPANESE AMERICANS AND THE WAR IN COLORADO
Nikkei Amerikajin To Senso: Rokujunengo No Shinjitsu: Kororado Nihonjin Monogatari. By Eiichi Imada. Osaka, Paredo, Tokyo: Seiunsha, 2005. 339 pp. Photos, illustrations, and bibliography. ¥1800.
Off the Fat of the Land: The Denver Post's Story of Japanese Internment during World War II. By Kumiko Takahara. Powell, WY: Western History Publications, 2003. 198 pp. Maps, tables, photos, illustrations, bibliography, notes, and appendix. $16.95 (paper).
Amache: The Story of Japanese Internment in Colorado during World War II. By Robert Harvey. Boulder, CO: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004. 246 pp. Photos, notes, and index. $85.00 (cloth).
Koko Ga Watashi No Kokyo Desu: Kororado San Ruisu Bare Nihonjin Nyushokusha No Monogatari. By Harumi Kato. Tokyo: Shinpusha, 2004. 191 pp. Maps, photo, illustrations, and bibliography. ¥1800.
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When considered together, the four recent monographs discussed below greatly solidify our understanding of the experience of Japanese Americans in Colorado during World War II. |
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In English, the title of Eiichi Imada's new book is "The Story of the Japanese in Colorado: Japanese Americans and World War II—The Truth after Sixty Years." Although originally from Japan, Imada has sunk deep roots in the Colorado Japanese American community as the long-term publisher of the Rocky Mountain Jiho, a Denver-based vernacular newspaper. |
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Imada's account of the war years is squarely situated within a longer history of Japanese Americans in the thirty-eighth state. Despite its subtitle, the book presents detailed information about the Japanese pioneers in Colorado and the initial formation of its early Japanese American community. |
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Readers will immediately wonder about the title, since it indicates that Imada presents startling revelations that have been heretofore unknown. Although these are more modest than his title implies, Imada does recount little-known stories that bring Colorado's history to life. Unlike previous Colorado historians, for example, Imada details accounts of young Kibei—Americans of Japanese ancestry whose parents sent them to be educated in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. A number of Kibei returned to Colorado right before the United States entered the war. Before Imada, no one had explored their particular situation as an integral part of the larger Japanese American experience in the states. Imada also recounts the little-known story of the Ozaki family, who were deported from Peru during World War II and who eventually settled along the Colorado Front Range. |
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Of course, the stories of Kibei and Japanese Latin Americans have already been recorded in the scholarly literature, but not necessarily in Colorado. Imada does not tell us if the experiences of Colorado Kibei and Japanese Latin Americans were different from counterparts in other Rocky Mountain states, the Southwest, or anywhere else. Still, Nikkei Amerikajin To Senso offers a solid, chronological narrative, and Imada provides detailed personal and family histories that enliven his account throughout. |
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If oral histories and biographies offer one kind of data about the Japanese American experience during the war years, other approaches offer new insights into the institutions and conditions that framed that experience. Kumiko Takahara's recent Off the Fat of the Land is an excellent example of this point as she highlights how a regional media outlet, the Denver Post, played a major role in both shaping and reflecting the public's view of people of Japanese ancestry. Originally born and raised in Japan, Takahara is a retired professor of Japanese who taught for many years at the University of Colorado, Boulder. |
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