Oregon Historical Society

15 books for learning about Japanese American internment

Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt 75 years ago on Feb. 19, 1942, resulted in more than 120,000 men, women and children of Japanese ancestry being evicted from their homes and imprisoned in desolate "internment camps." In this photo, two people sit in hastily set-up living quarters in the Portland Assembly Center, formerly the Pacific International Livestock and Exposition Center, awaiting their departure for the camps. Numerous authors have written about this period in American history; here are 15 titles worth checking out.

--Compiled by Amy Wang

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'No-No Boy'

This 1956 novel, by Seattle native John Okada, is considered the first Japanese American novel and an Asian American literary classic. Its title comes from the answers many Japanese American men gave to a government questionnaire administered during World War II: would they serve in the armed forces and would they swear loyalty to the U.S.

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'Farewell to Manzanar'

This 1973 memoir of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s imprisonment with her family at the Manzanar camp in central California has been used by numerous schools and universities as part of their curriculum. It was made into a television movie whose cast included Pat Morita, of “Karate Kid” fame.

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'Manzanar'

The legendary photographer Ansel Adams visited the Manzanar camp in 1943 to document the facility and the people living there. His images were collected in this 1988 book, which features commentary by Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Hersey.

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'Stubborn Twig'

This 1993 book by University of Oregon professor Lauren Kessler tells the story of Hood River's Yasui family, which includes the lawyer Minoru Yasui. In 1942, he deliberately broke a military curfew for Japanese Americans to test its constitutionality. He posthumously received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from President Barack Obama.

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'Baseball Saved Us'

This 1993 children’s book tells the internment story through the eyes of a father and son who start a baseball league to boost spirits at their camp. Author Ken Mochizuki’s parents were sent to the Minidoka camp in Idaho.

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Amy Wang | The Oregonian/OregonLive

'The Bracelet'

This 1993 children’s book centers on a 7-year-old girl who is dismayed when, while working in the internment camp where she and her mother have been sent, she loses the bracelet her best friend gave her as a parting gift. Author Yoshiko Uchida was herself interned as a child.

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Amy Wang | The Oregonian/OregonLive

'Snow Falling on Cedars'

David Guterson’s 1994 novel, set on a fictional island in Washington’s Puget Sound, has at its heart an interracial love triangle that includes two Japanese Americans sent to an internment camp. The book won a PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was made into an Oscar-nominated film and a play, which Portland Center Stage produced in 2010.

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Amy Wang | The Oregonian/OregonLive

'Only What We Could Carry'

This 2000 anthology was edited by Oregon’s fifth poet laureate, Lawson Fusao Inada, who was interned as a child at camps in California, Arkansas and Colorado. He is an emeritus professor of English at Southern Oregon University.

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'When the Emperor was Divine'

Julie Otsuka’s 2002 novel is loosely based on the internment camp experience of her mother’s family. It tells the story from the perspectives of a family of four: father, mother, 11-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son.

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'Impounded'

This 2006 book collects 119 images made by the documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, then censored by the U.S. Army. The book was edited by Portland-born historian Linda Gordon and ethnic studies scholar Gary Okihiro.

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'Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet'

In Jamie Ford’s 2009 debut novel, a Chinese American widower in Seattle is reminded of his childhood friendship with a Japanese American girl when cartons of internees’ belongings are discovered in a long-closed hotel. The book won several awards for its Oregon- and Washington-raised author.

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'Bridge of Scarlet Leaves'

This 2012 novel by Kristina McMorris, a member of Portland’s Yoshida family, was inspired by the true story of a white woman, Elaine Black Yoneda, who insisted on following her Japanese American husband and their son into the Manzanar internment camp. About 200 non-Japanese voluntarily entered the camps rather than separate from their spouses, McMorris wrote in an author’s note.

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'Requiem'

Canada also evicted residents of Japanese descent from its West Coast and interned them during World War II. In this 2013 novel, Canadian writer Frances Itani imagines a man who was interned as a child reopening old wounds from his family’s past.

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'Infamy'

Richard Reeves, a veteran print and broadcast journalist, received rave reviews for his 2015 book, which examined the internment period from the decisions made in Washington, D.C., to the experiences of individuals sent to the camps. Tom Brokaw called “Infamy” a “very important book.”

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'Midnight in Broad Daylight'

In this 2017 book that’s created national buzz, historian Pamela Rotner Sakamoto tells the true story of three Japanese American brothers from the Pacific Northwest who are divided by World War Two: One ends up in an internment camp, while two become soldiers in the Japanese Imperial Army.

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The Oregonian/1942

Other ways to remember

Thousands of Portland-area Japanese Americans were ordered to report to former cattle yards in North Portland to be processed for relocation in 1942. Five local events will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the order.