Shadow Books

Detailed and exhaustive book by/about Ichihashi who came to the US from Japan in 1984 at the age of 16 to study. He graduated from Stanford, got a Ph.D. from Harvard, became a professor at Stanford. He and his wife and son "relocated" to Santa Anita and then Tule Lake and then Granada (Amache) during WWII. He became embittered and an elitist during the war years, which is told in a very dramatic albiet exhaustive fashion in the book via his letters. Following relocation he and his wife returned to a very different Stanford University and environs, which he found very difficult to cope with. Very enjoyable book, personal as well as historical.

Though long and at times cumbersome to read, this is a valuable addition to the literature in Asian American and World War II internment history. Yamato Ichihashi is an all but forgotten figure who has left a written record of his internment experience as he lived it, making this book a rare and important piece that all students of the internment should read. At the same time, this book belongs to the body of literature in Asian American social history. Who knew that in the early 1900s, Stanford University had a Japanese American professor among its faculty? What kind of life did he lead considering his anomalous position as an academic compared to other Japanese in America and the intense anti-Asian atmosphere of those times in the West? How does knowledge of this man's life enrich our understanding of Asian American history and American history at large? All of those questions are satisfyingly answered. Ichihashi's writings take center stage in the book, but Chang provides lucidly written annotations and a bibliographic essay that make the volume quite readable and enjoyable. Chang allows Ichihashi's words to speak for themselves which allows the reader to get a very vivid picture of life in the internment camps. In addition, reading his thoughts about his circumstances as an academic, a professor at Stanford, and an internee offer rare and revealing insights.

This is an excellent book! Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. I strongly recommend this book. Great meaningful poetry. You can tell the author is a God loving person.

This book is reality it touches your heart and soul. It deals with all parts of life God, love, religion, cancer, and war it leaves no stone unturn. The thought of getting your Father's work published after he has passed on makes your heart warm and his work is fantastic. You will not be able to read a little be prepared it keeps you heart , mind and soul peeled inside. Thought provoking, heart wrenching,and real. Look inside you will not be disappointed.

This book is one of my absolute favorites. When I pick it up, I feel like I am transported to another time and another place. The pictures and stories depicting life in Nauvoo in the 1830's and 1840's are treasures that will remain on my bookshelf and in my heart.

This is a wonderful book that is both interesting and visually stunning. You will learn about the LDS people who settled and made Nauvoo the properous city it once was as well as see lovely photographs of the buildings and the area. You'll feel like you're right there.

The leader of the U.S. trained and equipped National Guard Anastasio Somoza Garcia seized power in Nicaragua in 1936. He was an S.O.B., but he was our S.O.B. as Franklin Roosevelt immortally said privately in 1939 when Somoza visited him in Washington D.C. Somoza wanted the National Guard officers and enlisted men to enrich themselves in mafia-style rackets such as prostitution, according to Walker, so they would be dependent on him for their self-enrichment and would thus constitute a force immune from popular discontent. Somoza Garcia's son Luis succeeded him after his assassination in 1956. Luis set up a lot of bureaucracies supposedly devoted to social services and economic planning, but these were in reality mainly used as a vehicle to funnel U.S. aid money to the Somoza family and its cronies. Walker cites the particularly blatant case of how the government used U.S. aid money after an earthquake in December 1972 completely destroyed Managua.

Anastasio Somoza Debayle Jr. took over as president from his brother in 1967. Anastasio Jr. reinstated a "state of siege" and sent the National Guard into the Countryside, where the (FSLN) Sandinistas were involved in stimulating peasant activism, after a December 1974 successful hostage taking operation by the Sandinistas. The Guard proceeded to rape and kill and pillage thousands. Many American Catholic clerical and lay workers witnessed these actions and the U.S. congress was moved to hold hearings.

In 1977, President Carter suspended military aid to Somoza in order to force him to relax somewhat his censorship of the press, thinking that the U.S. could afford for Somoza to do so without the status quo in Nicaragua being disrupted. However, in early 1978, after increasing massacres of civilians in the tens of thousands by the National Guard Carter resumed economic and military aid to Somoza. The uprising had begun in early 1978 after the assassination of newspaper editor Pedro Joaquin Chamarro. The Carter administration, in conjunction with the Organization of American States, eventually tried to enforce its policy of "Somocismo sin Somoza"....

Walker describes how the Carter administration refused to send arms to the Sandinistas and looked the other way as the military oligarchy in Honduras allowed remnants of the National Guard, helped by trainers from the Argentine neonazi military regime, to organize the force which would become the Contras. ....

The Reaganites refused to sell arms to the Sandinistas, cut off all aid, and successfully pressured the French to end an arms deal with the Sandinistas in 1981. Increasingly, the Sandinistas were forced to rely on Soviet block arms. Walker notes that the rifles, AK-47's and tanks that the Nicaraguans received from the Soviet block were small in number and often old and decrepit. Clearly the Sandinistas were seeking military aid from the Soviet Block because the Reaganites had launched a full scale proxy terrorist war against them. The Contras deliberately attacked civilian infrastructure and murdered teachers, doctors and engineers. The attacks on oil storage and port facilities by the Contras in 1983 and 84' caused Venezuela and Mexico to suspend oil shipments--Nicaragua was then forced to turn to the Soviet block for its petroleum needs. The FSLN managed to maintain fairly extensive economic and political relations with Western Europe and capitalist countries in the third world but the U.S. media preferred to ignore this.

In the early 80's, Walker notes the Sandinistas achieved some remarkable successes. Nicaragua's infant mortality rate was reduced from 121 per 1000 in 1978 to 90 per 1000 in 1983. The Kissinger Commission report of 1984 blamed the Sandinistas because it said that Nicaragua's GDP was reduced by 38 percent from 1977 to 1983. This was deceptive, Walker notes, because that statistic had in it the last two and a half years of the rule of Somoza when the country was largely destroyed. In the years 1980-83, Walker notes, the Nicaraguan economy actually grew by an average of 7 percent, while the rest of Central America's economies declined by 14 percent.

In spite of some mild repression (not comparable to U.S. backed terror in Guatemala and El Salvador) in response to the country being under U.S. backed terrorist attack, reactionary newspapers like La Prensa were allowed to violently attack the government and receive funding from the CIA. The CIA instigated protests by the Nicaraguan opposition which attempted to provoke the Sandinistas into repressive actions, Walker quotes House Speaker Jim Wright revealing in January 1988. Meanwhile, in U.S. client states Guatemala and El Salvador newspaper offices were being blown up by the military backed death squads, and newspaper editors were left disemboweled by the side of the road. In 1984, the Sandinistas had an election which was judged free and fair by a wide variety observer delegations, including from the British parliament and House of Lords, Danish and Irish Parliaments, etc. Disruption of opposition rallies by Sandinista "turbas" only occurred about 5 times out of 250 instances according to election analysts. Walker quotes a statistic to the effect that 46 of the 48 top Contra officers had been officers in Somoza's National Guard--I think he got this from Edgar Chamarro, the former Contra spokesman.

The U.S. escalated its economic strangulation and terror attacks on Nicaragua and the latter was eventually forced to devote the majority of its budget to defense. In 1990, the Sandinistas held an election, as the 1987 constitution had mandated them to do and the Nicaraguan electorate, under the threat of continued U.S. funding of Contra terrorists if the Sandinistas won, voted in the UNO. The U.S. had achieved its goal of restoring the old Somoza era social order within Nicaragua. Walker gives an extensive discussion of the post-1990 social order. Nicaragua ranked 61st on the UN Human Development Index in 1990; it ranked 116th by 2000.
Walker gives an instructive look at how the miserable rural proletariat of Nicaragua was created by the late 19th century.

This is written in a remarkably even-handed register when you consider the outrageous (imperial?) actions of the US over the years, regarding Nicaragua. I also found the explanation of dependent economies (where most of the effort goes into goods for export rather than goods for the common good!) very enlightening. It challenged my basic beliefs of what government does and should do for, with, and by its citizenry. If you want a concise history of Nicaragua that includes treatment of all the factions involved over the years, this is it! The author has appended an extensive bibliography of English-language sources and additional reading materials that appears very thorough and helpful to going deeper into this country.

As a student of Stephen K. Hayes, I have always eagerly devoured anything he has written, and this one did not disappoint. This particular book is more about the historical roots and philosophical underpinnings of the higher life-path or life-way of 'Ninpo.' 'Ninjutsu' could be said to refer only to the physical techniques, the punches, kicks, throws, and use of weapons that instantly spring to mind when we hear the word 'martial art.' Then we can also work on our intellectual development through the study of history, languages, chemistry, physics, music; all the arts and sciences. Then we can also work on our spiritual development (see Abe Maslow's "Further Reaches of Human Nature"). This triple approach to our human development, body & mind & spirit, is Ninpo. Shidoshi Hayes, a Grandmaster in his own right, listed in "Who's Who in the World", and an ordained Buddhist priest, explores in this book all of the spiritual traditions that have left their mark on Ninpo, the higher life-path. Shinto, Buddhism, shugendo, and Daoism are the major focus.

Ninja Realms of Power is an overview of Stephen Hayes' explorations into the Japanese spiritual traditions of `Shugendo ~ seeking power in the mountains', `Mikkyo ~ secret doctrines of the Himalayan kingdoms', and `Sennin ~ Taoist practices for the goal of immortality. Stephen Hayes, one of the West's most well-known and respected authorities on Ninjutsu, also includes a chapter on `Ninpo Taijutsu'.

Looking at Sennin we see that the practitioner works physically and mentally at consciously experiencing the bridging of the gap between the in and yo (the yin and the yang) elements around him. The Sennin learns to transcend illusion and gain a vision of the universe as a single unified process as opposed to an overwhelming collection of seemingly conflicting and unrelated parts.

Looking at Mikkyo we see a priest with a collection of swords. The Mikkyo priest points out that the blade of the sword is forged for the purpose of protecting the sanctity of life. The cutting edge affords the bearer that reserve of confidence and power that permits gentle and courteous behavior.

The Shugendo is a blending of many related spiritual practices, including `Zudagyo ~ Buddhist teachings', `Dokyo and Omyodo ~ Taoist philosophies', the `Zomitsu ~ the nonreligious forerunner of the Mikkyo', `Shinto', `Jukkyo ~ Confucian teachings', and a wide assortment of Japanese folk beliefs.

Stephen Hayes also gives a detailed description of the `Goma fire ritual' and his participation, walking across the hot coals and burning embers of the fire. (This section also includes a number of great photographs of the ritual.)

In the chapter on `Ninpo Taijutsu' various martial arts techniques are demonstrated, but more importantly we see that only by progressing to realms of harmonized energy does the warrior begin to glimpse the potential for invincibility.

Ninja Realms of Power is a "must have" book for anyone studying shinobi-no-jutsu (ninjutsu), but also for anyone interested in the warrior philosophies and religions of Japan. A well written text, with several photographs and drawings throughout. I highly recommend this book to both the casual reader and dedicated student.

This must be one of the greatest sermons ever delivered on sexual morality. Written from a Latter-Day Saint perspective, Elder Holland stresses the beauty of sancitity of the relationship between husband and wife, and the importance of chastity and fidelity.

"Such an act of love between a man and a woman is - or certainly was ordained to be - a symbol of total union: union of their hearts, their hopes, their lives, their love, their family, their future, their everything...The Prophet Joseph Smith once said we perhaps could render such a sacred bond as welding-that those united in matrimony and eternal families are welded together, inseparable if you will, to withstand the temptations of the adversary and the afflictions of morality."

"Sexual intimacy is not only a symbolic union between a man and a woman- the uniting of their very souls-but it is also symbolic of a union between morals and deity, between otherwise ordinary and falliable humans uniting for a rare and special moment with God Himself and all the powers by which He gives life in this wide universe of ours." "Human intimacy is a kind of sacrament, a very special symbol","Those special moments of union with God are sacramental moments","These are the moments when we quite literally unite our will with God's will","We take some of that divinity to ourselves", and by "invitation stand with Him in privilege and principality". Sexual union is a sacrament of the highest order.

The prophet Jacob taught in the Book of Mormon when confronting sexual transgression, "For Behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land...And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people...shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts. For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction." The prophet Alma in the Book of Mormon taught that sexual transgression was "an abomination above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost." Can the wicked think to say "I have done no wickedness" before the divine judge and escape punishment? Are our bodies really ours? Paul taught,"Ye are not your own", "Ye are bought with a price" meaning we are ransomed from Justice through the repentance process made available through the atonement of Christ.

"But I know of nothing so earth-shatteringly powerful and yet so universally and unstintingly given to us as the God-given power available in every one of us from our early teen years on to create a human body, that wonder of all wonders, a genetically and spiritually unique being never before seen in the history of the world and nver to be duplicated again in all the ages of eternity: a child, our child-with eyes and ears and fingers and toes and a future of unspeakable grandeur." "Of all the titles He has chosen for himself, Father is the one he declares and creation is his watchword-especially human creation, creation in his image...We-you and I are his prized possessions."

"And the only control placed on us is self-control-self control born of respect for the divine sacramental power it is."

Any person serious about photography should own and carefully read the text that accompanies the photographs. Any book of this scope has shortcomings, but the insights of the four authors are superb.

A good book on an important subject! - historic photographs

Anthony and Joan both could not put this book down! Anthony read it first, then read parts of it to Joan, then Joan read it. In the spirit of The Work and the Glory series by Lund, Standing on the Promises, combines factual history and characters with an outstanding story. The characters really come alive and the reader can truly imagine themselves right in the story and experiencing the events portrayed. The actual events and research are documented after each chapter and provide a wonderful historical review of the evidence. After, becoming acquainted with Elijah, Jane and Isaac in other publications, being able to read their stories was truly inspiritational. We are eagerly awaiting the next book in this series!

The following review appeared in November 2000 online in "Dunbar on Black Books" (http://www.queenhyte.com/dobb/dobb_archives/dobb_00/nov_00.htm ):

One More River to Cross by Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray (Bookcraft, ISBN 1-57345-629-2) is the first of a trilogy entitled Standing on the Promises. It is a historical novel about black Mormon pioneers. With it "Dunbar on Black Books" (DOBB) makes an exception to its custom of reviewing only nonfiction books. We do this for two reasons. First, this book, albeit a novel, observes canons of history more dutifully than some works that hold themselves out as pure works of history. In the author's notes, the reader is told: "We have been true to all the facts that we could find but have freely fictionalized the spaces between the facts." Second, this book deals convincingly with an important subject about which very little has been written: black Mormon adherents whose membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City dates back as far as 1832.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes much of the point that this book is not an official publication of the church. Bookcraft, its publisher, states that the book does not represent its position. One must know that Deseret Books publishes doctrinal works by Latter-day Saint leaders, biographies, and "enlightening" church historical books and that Bookcraft is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company. It is in this context that DOBB reviews One More River to Cross.

When we overhear Delilah Abel whispering to her sleeping son Eli[jah] on the plantation just before they flee, we may think that they are fictional characters. We later learn from citations of the records of baptisms in the Nauvoo Temple Church of the Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City that they were living people and that Eli[jah] Abel was baptized there. So that while we may have reservations about the dialogue between the persons in the book, or even the accounts of events that took place on the journey to Salt Lake City from Maryland or from Alabama, or from wherever, we know that Elijah Abel made it to Salt Lake. More than that, we are provided with evidence that he was one of the very few blacks to receive the priesthood in the early church and that he was ordained by the Prophet himself.

This book is one of the first, if not the very first, that this reviewer read by starting with the end notes. Quite frankly, to me the notes are a most significant part of this book. The authors make excellent use of records in the Missionary Record Books of the church, of information from conversations of Joseph Smith, as reported in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, from U.S. Census records in Salt Lake City, and from Brigham Young's Journal, to mention a few of their sources. They have given us a book providing information about African Americans in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that is not widely available.

A word about the authors is in order. Heber G. Wolsey, former managing director, public communications, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says of Darius Gray, the black co-author, "I know of no one who can express a more objective, more compassionate, more honest portrayal of blacks in the Mormon Church than Darius Gray." Gray is a former journalist and presides over the Genesis Group, an official arm of the Mormon Church. The Genesis Group was organized in 1971 to support church members of African descent. Coauthor Margaret Blair Young is a lifelong white member of the church, "with pioneer heritage," Mr. Wolsey points out. "She has felt deeply over the past few years the inspiration of her pioneer forebears, many of whom knew the Saints of color portrayed in this novel," he says.

This is an important book. It ought to be read by everyone as it throws light on some little-known facts about the history of the membership of African Americans in the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In this era in which Protestants are looking to their roots after decades of ecumenism, Darius Gray, as a black Mormon should not be on the defensive because of widely held, erroneous perceptions of the history of black membership in his church.

If this book were a nonfiction work, I would make the observation that an index would have been useful. The bibliography is excellent. William G. Hartley, associate professor of history, Smith Institute, Brigham Young University, says it all when he says, "In a way that pure history cannot do, this story attaches us to black Saints who deserve to be known about and appreciated by our generation."

With two more volumes to come, the contributions of African Americans to the Mormon Church should be well documented for the general public. It has been said that the best way to keep information from black men is to put it in a book and classify it as nonfiction. Perhaps Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray have found a formula to set this situation right.

The uninhibited Chanukah dance that graces the cover of Serrotta's "picture book" invites you to sit down and spend the rest of the evening in the world he discovered. While some of the information is since outdated -- synagogues have been rebuilt, Jews from Russia moving westward changing the landscape -- you still taste the life he found behind the Iron Curtain.

If you are Jewish, this book reminds you that there is always hope, that the shtetl gave us great literature and tremendous inner strength.

If you are not Jewish, you will still revel in the stubborn life that hung in there through awfully dark days, preserving tradition against all odds.

Edward Serrotta's lens makes magic.

This is a sensational book of photography. Why? Edward Serotta, the photographer, displayed the life of Jews after the Holocaust in an interesting and unique way. Buy looking at these pictures, Serotta tells the story of the lives of people from Bulgaria to Romania. By looking at the book, one gets the feeling that the culture and religion of the Jewish people in Central Europe remains and flourishes. However, it still seems as though the marking of the Holocaust hangs around the lives of people who live in Europe. In addition, Edward Serotta gives a substanial amount of information about what he encountered when he explored the countries. All of his writing is to the point and is intruiging to read. Overall, I feel anyone who wants to get a good idea of live after the war in Europe must read this book.

A griping read. The author does an excellent job describing her life as a rape victim and bizarre intricacies of the Mormon religion

Mormonism permeates just about every aspect of a believer's life. Pam McCreary does an excellent job of relating, in a gripping and well written manner, what it is like to grow up in the Mormon church. She exposes the not so well hidden sexism that infects the church at all levels. And she describes how Mormonism requires its followers to sacrifice their individuality and uniqueness on its altar of obedience and conformity. She also poignantly tells how discovering the truth about the Mormon church fundamentally altered her life and forever changed her relationship with her parents, her spouse, and her friends.

As a former Mormon, I found that much of Pam McCreary's life mirrored my own and that she has successfully battled many of the same demons that I have. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is and has struggled with being Mormon or anyone who has a spouse, close friend or relative undergoing such a struggle.