The Japanese American Family Album

by Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler

Book Overview

The first Japanese immigrants to the United States came to Hawaii to work on sugar plantations, quickly followed by others who came to mainland cities. Their images of America were formed by popular guidebooks with titles such as Mysterious America and Come, Japanese that promised, "Gold, silver, and gems are scattered on the] streets. If you can figure out a way of picking them up, you'll become rich instantly." The Japanese arrived with the hope...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195124235
• ISBN13: 9780195124231
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 10.5" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

Summary of the Japanese American Experience

This book is one of the few that actually tries to tackle the long story of struggle and assimilation by Japanese Americans into American society. It starts off with an intro by George Takei and then dives into the history of emigration, era of laborers in Calif and Hawaii, settlement by families, the concentration camp experience, and the post war assimilation. The best part of the book is the numerous pictures and quotes from books/newspapers from famous figures in Japanese American lore: Yoshiko Uchida, Daniel Inouye, Isamu Noguchi, Ellison Onizuka, etc.. For somebody looking for easy reading material (without the philosophical discussion of racism that you may find in Takaki's books), I recommend it highly.