Japanese American Books

A must read to appreciate what this brave service did to lead the 'win' in the pacific theatre. Without the submarine service, no one could tell you of a happy outcome...

Entrance to the US navy's submarine service is entirely voluntary. Submariners were close, cramped, unhygienic and potential death traps. Those who served on submarines during World War II were at a higher risk than others in the Navy. Some of the crew of the USS Squalus barely escaped death when their sub was rescued from the depths by the USS Fulton after error flooded several compartments. The Japanese fleet was merciless in the Pacific and submarine after submarine fell. The torpedoes touted by the Navy were more often than not duds leaving the subs exposed and subject to retaliation. . Both the Japanese and Germans had spies in Pearl Harbor prior to the December attack. The Japanese consulate, students, and a German family sent to Hawaii by Joseph Gobbles gathered intelligence for the Axis powers. The Japanese also had an encoding system that seemed impenetrable. Added intelligence was gleaned from US newspapers and even a member of US Congress. The US was finally having some success breaking the Japanese's code. One the few who knew the code had been broken were Commander John Cromwell of the USS Sculpin. In November 1943 the Sculpin was attacked by the Japanese destroyer Yamagumo. Despite evasive action, including a dive to depths never attempted by a sub prior to that day, the Sculpin was disabled and survivors took to the open waters. One member of the crew Lt. Commander John Cromwell urged his men to escape but chose to remain with the sinking sub. Fully aware of the possibility of torture at the hands of his captors, Lt. Commander John Cromwell urged his men to escape but chose to remain with the sinking sub, fearing if captured and tortured, he might divulge the information that the US had broken the Japanese code. Those who survived being machine gunned by Japanese sailors were taken aboard and sent to POW camps and to work as slave labor. Much of the Navy's knowledge of the sinking came from intercepted Japanese cables. Weeks later the Sculpin's, sister sub, the USS Sailfish surprised a Japanese aircraft carrier and became the first sub to sink an aircraft carrier. On board the ship were some of the Sculpin survivors on their way to POW camps. All died except one who was rescued by the Americans.

This is a comprehensive account of the USS Sculpin's last patrol and final battle. It also details the intertwined histories of the Sculpin and the Sailfish (formerly the USS Squalus) and their part in the battle for the Pacific. Sadly, the story is a bit disjointed and I kept having to go back and reread to figure where I was.

Jonathan McCullough has put together a very ambitious, exciting and informative book. He writes with the authority of an old salt--I'm sure due to exhaustive research. How did we win the war with those lousy torpedoes? I felt the claustrophobia of being in a sub under attack. Who knew that it could be so hot in a submarine. One would think that being submerged in water would keep a sub cool. After reading about the Japanese treatment of our sailors I feel a little guilty owning a Nissan. McCullough's info on breaking and then protecting the secret of having broken the Jap code is fascinating. The book holds the ingredients of a great underdog / hero story. What tragedy, the sinking of a vessel carrying your own men. Thank god for men like Captain John Cromwell. A compelling read.

The intertwined histories of two USN WWII submarines - USS Sculpin and USS Sailfish - are supposedly the subject of this 2008 book from Grand Central Publishing. I say supposedly because the book is so poorly focused you wonder exactly what's in author Jonathan McCullough's periscope sights.

Sculpin (SS-191) and Sailfish (SS-192) had two tragic connections. In May 1939, SS-192, then named Squalus, sank; Sculpin aided in the rescue of her surviving crew. In November 1943 Sculpin was sunk by Japanese destroyers. Some of her survivors were put on board escort carrier IJN Chuyo to be ferried to Japan. Tragically Chuyo was then sunk by Sailfish/Squalus in December 1943. Only one of 21 Sculpin crewmen survived the sinking of the carrier.

Had McCullough told that story, he would have had a great book on his hands. Unfortunately he runs aground for several reasons. First, he devotes pages and pages of A TALE OF TWO SUBS to USN codebreaking operations in WWII. I don't understand why he introduced this totally unrelated element into the book. There isn't a large enough connection between the codebreaking efforts of Joe Rochefort, Jasper Holmes, etc. and the Sculpin/Sailfish story to justify the verbage. As a result, in reading the book, Sailfish often seems like a bit player in a book supposedly detailing its career! Second, the book's organization seems out-of-whack. Sailfish and Sculpin's first cosmic connection came in 1939 yet McCullough doesn't get to that until p. 182. Third, although both subs attacked Japanese shipping, McCullough doesn't include details of the damage they actually inflicted versus what they claimed; such information is readily available in standard sources on the Silent Service.

Sorry to say, I can't recommend A TALE OF TWO SUBS.

The Sculpin and Sailfish were two of the U.S. Navy's attack submarines. They, along with the other submarines of the U.S. fleet, were charged with "unrestricted" attacks on all types of Japanese shipping. The submariners carried this task out with cold efficiency. However, in the early days of the war, American submarines were plagued by faulty torpedoes which would "porpoise" or fail to explode upon striking an enemy vessel. Many Japanese ships escaped sure destruction as a result of these inferior weapons.

The Sailfish began its life as the USS Squalis. In the spring of 1939, the Squalis sank during a test dive off the Eastern coast of the United States. Over half of the crew was killed, but some managed to survive the sinking by moving toward the front of the boat, which was undamaged. In a remarkable feat of engineering, these surviving men were rescued from the doomed sub with a diving bell which could be attached to the sub's hull. The Squalis itself was raised from the ocean, repaired and refitted, and re-commissioned as the USS Sailfish. However, many considered the boat to be cursed due to its earlier sinking. Still, the Sailfish began its new service to the Navy.

The USS Sculpin, sister to the Squalis, had been insturmental in assisting with the rescue efforts. Now, the two subs were in service against the Japanese. On November 19, 1943, the Sculpin was attacked by a Japanese destroyer. Forced to surface due to the large amount of damage it received, the commander of the Sculpin decided to fight it out on the surface with the Japanese destroyer while making preparations to scuttle the sub. One of the men who perished aboard the Sculpin was Commander John P. Cromwell, who made the ultimate sacrifice rather than risk being captured and forced to reveal his knowledge that the Americans had broken the Japanese war code. The surviving Americans were taken aboard the Japanese destroyer, which headed for its base on Truk island. Upon reaching Truk, the prisoners were divided into two groups; one group was assigned to the Japanese aircraft carrier Unyo, while the other group was assigned to the carrier Chuyo. One group would live; one wouldn't.

Several days later, the USS Sailfish was patrolling in enemy waters. Acting on secret ULTRA information, the skipper knew that a Japanese convoy was due to pass by. Despite battling high seas and winds, the Sailfish managed to shoot its torpedoes at the enemy ships. Unknown to the crew of the Sailfish, the ship it targeted was the Chuyo, which carried survivors from the Sculpin. The group of survivors from the Unyo would ultimately reach Japan and serve out the remainder of the war as prisoners of the Japanese. These men endured barbaric treatment at the hands of their captors.

This is an exciting story. The lives of these two subs were forever intertwined. It was an unfortunate accident that the Sailfish torpedoed the enemy ship that was carrying survivors from the Sculpin.

I recommend this book highly. The author does a good job of describing the background of these two submarines as well as the code breaking efforts of the men at station HYPO. The book is written in a style that places the reader in the heat of battle. The chapters dealing with the Sculpin's battle with the Japanese destroyer are the best of the book.

Fans of submarine warfare will definitely want to read this book.

Truly marvelous photos and insightful essays combine to make real for those of us too young to remember, as well as for those who lived outside of the camps. A moving tribute to an unfortunate, if not shameful, part of American history.

As a teacher reading "Farewell To Manzanar," this book is invaluable describing the government attitude of the time. Yes it was wartime but, as Ronald Reagan said, "it was a mistake." These Lange photographs show the real hardships imposed on American citizens with no due process. They also show the courage and determination of these people. (Shikata ga nai)

The book itself is produced well with very good photo reproduction. It will be a personal favorite and a classroom resource for a long time.

I purchased the book based on previous photos by Dorothea Lange during the Japanese internment period in the United States. She is an excellent photographer, unfortunately the reproduction of her prints were fair in this book.

An injustice to Ms. Lange's photography. The photography of Ms. Lange is represented as the thesis of this book, but the photographs are so poorly reproduced that the point is lost. If you wish to learn a little about the internment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII it is adequate but as a retrospective of Ms. Lange's photography (which the publisher obviously is using as the marketing ploy), it is a failure.

When I first opened Impounded, I was a bit irritated at the length of the two written pieces that preceeded the actual photographs or Dorthea Lange. After reading the pieces by Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro I was much more aware of the depth of Lange's growing dislike of the idea of internment camps and just how valuable these photographs are to history. I confess, I had heard very little of these "relocations" during the war,barely aware that such a thing had happened. I had lived in Utah for over ten years before I knew one camp, Topaz, had been established in my own state. Page after page of Lange's clear eyed, unsentimental photos reveal just how stark and jarring these camps were. Photo after photo show American citizens lined up and submitting to the order to move. Faces show confusion, shame and sorrow. Other photos show the efforts made by camp inhabitants to bring horticulture, education and to instill a sense of community. Page of page of photos of fellow citizens being torn away from all they had built and worked for simply because they looked like the enemy. Page after page of Lange's clear-eyed documentation.
Many, if not most of these photographs have never been seen on any widespread basis. She was working as a photographer for a government agency and they could use these as they saw fit. They were simply put away and never saw any widespread distribution. It is a testament to the skill and inspiration of the photographer that we have this book of unsentimental and honest images of that shameful time in our nation's past. The only minus is the size of the photos. I woud have liked to have a larger photos to study.

Patricia Chao accomplishes something amazing,conveying, in great detail, one art form -- dance -- using another.Depicting dance in any medium save live performance and film (and this would make a great movie!)doesn't seem plausible, but this novel rocks. It's both steamy and deep;the author does a wonderful job getting into four different characters'heads.

For someone like me who knows the absolute minimum about salsa dance, this book was an intriguing introduction to an artform which for so many becomes a lifestyle, even an obsession. It also offers some history of Cuba since Castro, and the U.S.'s complicated relationship with its ex-patriate community.

In short -- a very rich, entertaining read -- a thinking person's beach book. I didn't want it to end!

At first I thought this book had me written all over it - I'm a flamenco guitarist learning salsa dancing.

Now that I'm learning dancing, I'm becoming aware of the dance class cliques where you go with your group to the club, and it's an important self-esteem builder to spend time with your cohorts ridiculing people from the other dance classes. Your dance class and dance clubs become your social life. There's a strong element of this in the book, and fans of that lifestyle will be intrigued. That definitely excludes me. I just dance to have fun and express myself, it's not life and death. I will say that it conveys that lifestyle very well, right down to minutiae.

As a reasonably proficient speaker and reader of Spanish, I cringed when the very first Spanish sentence in the book was obviously wrong. Since everything is done fast and on the cheap these days, I wonder if instead of getting a Spanish writing expert to proof the book, she just had a friend read through it. Many of my fluent Spanish-speaking friends can't spell Spanish at all because they simply learned by ear and never wrote it. Maybe that's what happened.

Essentially, I suppose you could say that it's a pretty good telenovela, and it's great for latin dance geeks. I had just hoped for more.

As mesmerizing in its language as it is in its breathless plot, Mambo Peligroso felt like something of a dangerous dance itself, refusing to let you off the floor to catch your breath (or make dinner, or what have you; I devoted an entire day to the book, unable to put it down.) Others have done a fine job of outlining the plot, so I'll just second their advice: read this book. You'll be glad you did.

I just finished reading this book and had to share my thoughts. The experience was so vivid, I feel as if I just watched a really great movie. The characters, descriptions and world that it creates are so incredibly energetic and alive, I feel as though I know what each person looks like, feels like-how they smell, and taste. I feel like I know what it's like to make love to the passionate, sexy women of Mambo Pelligroso (and couldn't help fantasizing about Ms Chao while I was reading). The structure is unusual and risk-taking. Part screenplay, part character study, part political thriller. The amazing thing is that it all works. I was engaged from start to finish. It is obvious Ms Chao has not only done her homework on the world of Latin dance, but also lives and breathes it. I can only be grateful that she did all the heavy lifting so that I could enjoy the genius of a writer who has the capacity to immerse the reader in this fascinating world.

As a member of the NYC mambo scene, I found this book mesmerizing and disarming in its ability to describe the emotional life of a salsa dancer in New York. Although my own experiences have not been quite as dramatic as Chao's characters (which is probably a good thing!!), I found that her writing beautifully captured the intensity of the salsa scene, as well as all the beauty, sensuality, and pride that distinguishes this dance from others. Chao's details about New York are accurate and fun to read, and the structure she uses to introduce each chapter is heartbreakingly beautiful. The plot is a page turner, but more importantly the characters are wonderfully drawn - in the end I was reading because I cared what happened to each one of them. I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever danced in New York, anyone who would ever aspire to, or simply to those who are looking for a window into this passionate and "peligroso" world.

Great book. Classic first person narrative of the times surrounding Japanese-American "relocation" (internment) in the Seattle area during WWII by a young girl turned young woman. The book is well-balanced with humor and seriousness. Many books of this Coming of Age genre are often boring ramblings of someone's traumatic teen age years. This book is much different. It provides a good balance of eyewitness accounts and personal musings. Not only it is a must read for anyone interested in the period or topic, it is on the short list pertaining to the Pacific Northwest in general.

I was required to read this book for My History of the American West course, and I enjoyed the book as it was a great story written by someone who experienced the internment, but after reading Strawberry Days by David A. Newiwert, I realized that Sone left out the true feelings of the War World II time period. She only briefly touches upon the racism and the hatred towards the Japanese during that time, and the injustices that they suffered. Still I did take into consideration the time period that the book was published, and the sentiments still being felt at that time. So I would highly recommend this book but I would also suggest to do any further reading of the topic to get a true feeling of the Japanese Internment.

As a real Japanese daughter in Tokyo of Today, I very much enjoyed Ms. Sone's narrative. This is a story about prewar Seattle and the life of Japanese-Americans, as well as her identity struggle during the war time.
With the eyes of an observant Nisei girl, Ms. Sone tells us about people around her, and school life, both local and Japanese, in a positive (somewhat humorous, sometimes sappy..) way.
This is amazing. No one told me such an interesting story like this. Travel guide books only show us lovely views or baseball stadiums. Japanese school textbooks NEVER mention Japanese-American history and heritage. What a waste. We could share their feelings...
I could have been a Nikkei(JA) daughter if my great-grand parents had emmigrated to the West Coast. (Actually, they once lived in Manchuria instead.)
Since I found this book, I also have searched my heart and wondered where I had come from... It's so stimulating.
ARIGATO, KAZUKO-san ! Seattle does not only mean Ichiro Suzuki.

Part of Nisei Daughter's charm is the way Sone is able to weave entertaining anecdotes throughout her tale, a story which is essentially about what being Japanese American in the time around wartime America meant to her. Specifically, her position as a Nisei daughter -- child of first generation Japanese Americans -- is the focus of this tale.

The disappointing thing about this book is how obviously self-censored the book is. Sone very briefly reveals deeply felt rage and resentment at intervals during the book, only to shake them off and quickly change to a more light-hearted topic. Granted, there is an ironic tone to many of her comments and situations, and again granted, she is writing for a post-war audience that probably would not be receptive to outspoken criticism of the Internment, but still Sone seems to sugar coat the experience just a bit too much for my tastes. By the end, with the patriotic speeches that make it sound like the Internment was as much the fault of the Japanese Americans as it was the government, I was getting a little tired of Sone's carefree and apologetic tone, especially after the highly charged preface. In the book, Sone all but thanks the government for interning her and her family and giving them this character-building experience.

If you are truly interested in the internment and the impact it had on the Japanese Americans, try a book like Joy Kogawa's "Obasan." It's written about the Japanese Canadian experience, which was even more extreme than the Japanese American one. Kogawa also experienced internment first hand, but "Obasan" is written far enough after the fact that Kogawa is able to give the story more perspective and is able to put a more honest face on what really happened.

Nisei Daughter is not a bad book by any means ... but it did not live up to my expectations either. Sone's self-conscious editing makes the story seem much more like a novel than the autobiography that it supposedly is. I kept wishing she would drop the mask she was wearing and let the reader see what she was really thinking!

Very nice memoir about being a first-generation Japanese American ("Nisei"). My biggest criticism is that the flow is not quite right. I attribute that to the fact that the author is not a writer by trade. The very extensive details that pepper the story detract to the overall flow of it, but nonetheless, this book is very interesting. Monica Sone explores the dichotomy that many "hybrid" people experience: the contradictions of culture, the generational gap made even deeper because of the cultural differences. In her case, these differences were quite extreme: from the demurred and modest Japanese ways to the boisterous, assertive American. She describes many examples of where these differences were patent, and does a very god job in the process. Another excellent area of the book is her analysis of the conflicting emotions she experienced. Here she is, feeling very American, and sent to a concentration camp, labeled as "the enemy". She and her fellow camp-mates experience a collective rage, but it is during these years and after her release that she finally comes to terms with her at times contradictory cultural heritage. The end has very patriotic overtones which I thought were quite sappy, given her circumstances. I wish she could have gone further into describing her family life after camp, and the reassimilation of Japanese into American society post WWII.

This was the best book I have ever read! Loved it. . .loved it. . .loved it!

In just 30 minutes a boy's life would change forever! My story takes place in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii during World War 2. The main characters are Frank, who is 11 and Kenji who is 11. Frank and Kenji both like baseball and reading. My book starts with 2 friends just meeting. Frank is American and Kenji is Japanese. The problem of this tale is that Pearl Harbor gets bombed. The Americans couldn't do anything. My favorite part is when they play baseball. I give this book 4 stars. I liked this book because it had a lot of detail. I think you should read it.

If the goal was to bore you to sleep the writer did a very good job. The writing style was terrible; boring, condescending, and almost comical in its psuedo-sadness. Even during the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was monotonous and repetitive. The story line is undeveloped; the book reads more like a first draft than a final one. The conclusion was predictable; even though the book was a let down, the ending was even more so. This book might have been good with some work; as it was, it stank.

My son is reading PEARL HARBOR IS BURNING, which is short not only on the mood and atmosphere of the time but also on facts. One child dons a "Baltimore Orioles" jacket even though the baseball team didn't move to Baltimore until the 1950's.

The book should focus on the events of Pearl Harbor,not on the story of racial tensions,which is grafted on. That's an important theme, but it doesn't belong here.

The story takes place in Hawaii, where two boys from very different backgrounds become friends during the strike on Pearl Harbor. This short story is a very good read. My only complaint is that the story ends too soon. The author took time to develop characters but ended the story. It really makes you want to know more about what happens to them in the aftermath of the attack. This book would be a great choice for teachers to read in their classrooms in light of recent events.

Praise you see for this book in reviews reflects the reverence people have for the subject matter and not the writing. If they were, in fact, addressing the author and her style, you'd see more words like "trite," "superficial" and "untalented." I had to check the "About the Author" section multiple times, just to make sure I wasn't being forced to read the self-published manuscript of a graduate student.

For everyone who read The Jungle and towards the end grew exasperated by unnecessary twist after unfeasible twist, this book will seem familiar. At least Sinclair had an excuse--he was writing a weekly feature in a newspaper. Revoyr, on the otherhand, has not justification for what can only be describe as mediocre writing. Okay, the main character is both a law student, a lesbian, asian, in a faltering relationship, estranged from her parents, her grandfather died, and she's investigating the 50 year old murders of 4 black teenagers. Her grandfather was the only asian in La who liked black people, and he was sent to an internment camp, and he served in WWII, and his store was torched twice by rioters, and he was an email aficionado in 1994. Are you serious? That's only to two characters--let us not forget her bisexual, biracial friend, her aunt who rejects the institution of marriage, the man who Jesus told to pick up bowling, a boy's father who killed 8 of his comrades in Korea without repercussion, and score of other entirely other implausible characters.

This book is a joke--and that is sad considering what a serious topic it is. I literally cringed with the turning of each new page, fearful of the lunacy I knew awaited me. It's like Revoyr threw in every possible cliched, and extreme character trait she could think of, and then an editor told her "why not shoot for the moon and make them all gay?"

And of course, it is all epitomized by the cover. It's a photograph of an old store front, with the title photoshopped in from WordArt. Like everything else in this book, we find big plans and little effort with a grand finale of poor results.

I agree with a prior reviewer- perhaps this book speaks most poignantly to those Angelinos who can know and feel the reality of Los Angeles depicted in its pages. I loved this book both for the natural beauty of LA which is sometimes lost in our daily lives - and way that it blended the Watts unrest through today to U.S. history of war and occupation. The characters are not cliche- they are very real and very familiar. As a 2nd gen Korean who grew up here the descriptions of JA characters as well as U.S. military in Korea and complicated Black/Asian relationships all resonated with me. As a community organizer working with low-income women of color and other immigrant workers - I found the same strange familiarity when "meeting" the social workers and non-profit folks in the story.

If you care about LA - you'll care about this story - more importantly, you'll see the truth in it.

As far as the first reviewer goes - it hardly mattered to the arc of the tale whether or not Jackie was queer or not - but it added a genuine personal dimension (without force or artifice) that I totally appreciated.

Perhaps this book is more pertinent towards a particular population of people. I am a Japanese-American who grew up in Southern California during the 60's, and this novel held a particular poignancy for me. Despite this, I found the book to be compelling and riveting. As the reader is taken through the multiple plot twists, a horrifying story emerges and the ending will leave you a different person. Love this book!

My wife found a reference to this novel in one of her Japanese language newspapers and suggested that I buy and read it. Am I ever happy that I did! Nina Revoyr has written a wonderful, gripping novel about some very tough times in our country, and has done so with understanding, compassion and feeling. Readers who lived through the era following World War Two will recall the ugly racial tensions of the era with all its denial, and the firestorms that erupted in Watts and other places as a result. Those who didn't live through it will get a harsh dose of reality as the protagonist searches for the killer of four black young men during the Watts riots, and the unexpected outcome as she discovers who the killer was.

I like Nina Revoyr's writing, I do not at all understand those who brush it off with comments like "trite," "mediocre" and "unrealistic." Having lived through that particular period in our history, I found the book very realistic. I hope Nina Revoyr keeps writing so that I can enjoy more of what she does. I couldn't put this book down.

George Polley
Seattle

It's obvious to me that the person writing this review did not read the book well. The people who died in the freezer were four Black boys, not Japanese. Because this book is about race relations, this is an important distinction.

As far as the book itself, it's enjoyable...a page turner. There are parts that are a bit overdone or that drag, but overall the book was very well-written and researched.

This was an incredible journey for me as I lived two blocks from the Furiyas until 1977 when my family moved from Versailles, Indiana. I remember the family fondly and this book put the rest of the story to many of my childhood memories.

I remember the summer Linda went to Japan and had always wondered what the trip was like. Now I know!

I bought the book this morning and finished it this evening. It's a great read and I'm now looking forward to trying some of the recipes.

I grew up half-Japanese in a whitebread small town in Illinois during the same period author Linda Furiya lived in her small Indiana town, and I can relate to much of her story. Was that the old Star Market in Chicago that her family made special trips to just like my family did? The author paints quite a revealing portrait of her life, wanting desperately to be like the other kids and confused about where she belongs and how to merge her two cultures. The racism she encounters and must deal with on her own will pull the heartstrings of readers. Her dream trip to Japan as a ten-year-old where she discovers her roots and her family is a deeply felt learning experience and creates a bond with her somewhat distant mother. Perhaps it is a typical immigrant story where children raised in America have a difficult time understanding the ways of parents of a foreign culture. Furiya offers a no-holds-barred commentary on this difficulty as well as the frustrations and confusion she felt as an alien in the country she was born and raised in.

Despite the disjointedness that often occurs in the flow between chapters, the subject of food and its meaning in her life provides a connectivity that culminates in a beautiful final chapter where Furija is able to look back on her childhood and come to a sense of understanding and peace. I quite enjoyed this book and plan on trying out some of the recipes.

Furiya has a voice that is warm, approachable, and intimate. Reading her work, you feel in the company of a friend who also happens to be a masterful storyteller. She weaves a tale that's both exotic and profoundly American, one that combines family and food in a way that's lyrical but never sentimental. Wherever you grew up, and whatever you mother put in your lunchbox, this is a treat to savor.

I was so anxious to read this book- I loved the title and expected some kind of knowledge or insight to come from having read it. Unfortunately I found it to be a very humdrum account of childhood angst in the midwest. I was surprised to learn that the author was a professional journalist; the grammar and punctuation were just awful in places and the flow was practically nonexistent, with the author going back and forth in time as if to teach the reader a lesson about something, but no lesson ever came, except possibly that people of Japanese heritage are annoyingly nonconfrontational and midwestern American men are dirty old predatory geezers. I can live without that type of pigeonholing, thank you.

As a Japanese-American raised first in California and then in Texas, I can relate to many of the experiences that author Linda Furiya, a food columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, shares in her childhood memoir of growing up as a Nisei in a small Indiana community, in particular, the complex interdependency evident in her relationship with her Japanese-born mother. In fact, Furiya spends little time writing about her father or her brothers because of the especially symbiotic connection with her mother. Her particular back story as an atypically liberated woman in a male-dominated society lends an intriguing twist on the stereotype one usually associates with the traditional Japanese woman.

Similar to Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, the book is a series of vignettes organized around selective memories of preparing and eating food reflective of the author's heritage. Whereas Esquivel opened each of her chapters with a recipe, Furiya chooses to close each chapter with one for family favorites such as Chinese Home-Style Tofu and Japanese Pot Stickers. Although the recipes make nice transitional points within her episodic structure, they actually aren't that necessary since she otherwise captures the pervasive dichotomy of having a racial identity utterly different from her surroundings in ways that are both poignant and painful. Some of the episodes felt so familiar to me that it made me wonder just how well Asian-Americans in general have assimilated into the mainstream.

The book's title refers to the Japanese box lunches that her mother would meticulously prepare for her to take to elementary school where her classmates had their regulation sandwiches. Rather than face embarrassing stares and questions, she would hide in the bathroom eating her mother's homemade onigiri. That palpable sense of isolation informs many of the anecdotes Furiya shares here, as they highlight the subtle forms of racism and sexism she experienced firsthand while attempting to make sense of her place between two distinct cultures. Moreover, she makes precisely calibrated observations on the generational conflict that seemed inevitable in serving to alienate her from her heritage only to embrace it later through her love of Japanese food. Despite some heavy-handed passages, the book is a relatively light read that taps into darker themes in a most affecting manner.

Frances Cogan provides interesting insight on another event during World War II that has been somewhat buried amongst the military battles that occurred in the Pacific theater of the war. CAPTURED: THE JAPANESE INTERNMENT OF AMERICAN CIVILIANS IN THE PHILIPPINES, 1941-1945 reveals the forgotten hardships that 5,000 American civilians had to endure while imprisoned by the Japanese army in one of several regions within the Philippine islands, such as Baguio.

Cogan derives her information from both primary and secondary sources. She tells a brief description of the Philippines, and what attracted Americans to live and work in the Islands. The most revealing part of the book is the internees' experiences. With much detail. Within her examination, Cogan attempts to integrate what was happening on the war front, the Bataan Death March and criticism of Gen. MacArthur's plans in the Pacific theater, as well as conditions within the prison walls, such as how food was distributed and how internees endured and occupied their time; the most interesting aspect is how the Philippine people helped to provide food and medical aid to the internees despite the conditions.

The only weakness of Cogan's examination is her very brief description of Filipino internees. They too had suffered under the Japanese occupation, and experienced extreme casualties and brutal treatment. Their experience is merely noted within a few pages near the conclusion of the book. In addition, the American internees suffered fear and unbearable experiences during their ordeal, but their stories appear briefly between the quantitative details.

Nevertheless, CAPTURED is a fresh perspective of the conflict in the Pacific during World War II. With Frances Cogan's historical narrative, readers will understand how this little know event in Social history relates to one of the most examined periods in 20th century history.

This book is full of historical errors. There were so many that I stopped reading it after I had finished about 80 pages. The author should revise the present edition and do more research to eliminate all those execreble and egregious errors! I am a survior of the Battle of Manila and I know whereof I speak.

Dr. Cogan's book is a well written, extremely well researched and oddly enough, politically incorrect account of the civilian internment during the war. She seems to prefer to give an accurate account rather than a sanitized version that many seem to prefer these days. Between her and Iris Chang, people have finally have a chance to read the truth about the terrible crimes committed by Japan throughout the Far East both before US involvement and after.

Ms. Cogan has produced an enduring and fascinating piece of scholarship; in addition to being minutely researched, this work is readable and enjoyable even to a scientist such as myself. As a biochemist who has read C.P. Snow, I find it obvious that Ms. Cogan is among those few scholars who can straddle "The Two Cultures" with ease. Her book is an important addition to the historical works available on the Pacific Theatre during WWII

Captured by Frances B. Cogan proves to be a well written and well researched book that reflects on the experiences of the American civilians living in Philippines after they were interned by the Japanese military during the Second World War. The author managed to find a keen balance in telling the history of the American civilians under Japanese rule and the considerable hardship it imposed upon them. However, the author take this approach with unexpected fairness and unbaised writing. While the Japanese military can hardly be considered to be a kind and caring people, nor were they monsters in uniforms. The author clearly pointed out that cultural, racial and military differences between the two sides make the American civilians internship that much more harder.

The book take a balanced look at different internment camps, experiences of individuals and their interpersonal relationship with each other as well as with their guards. A look at the privilage life prior to the war gives a good understanding of their mindset as they fell into captivity. The book also gives an good insights to what happened after they were released, not only to the Americans but to their native friends they left behind. I was bit surprised that she was bit critical about the Los Blancos raid when she wrote that it was good for the Americans but terrible for the native people who paid the price of Japanese anger.

The author on the other hand, is no great admirer of Douglas MacArthur. In some ways, she think MacArthur did more harm then good toward the internees by their experiences. She also take a curious turn when she try to compared the internment of Japanese-Americans to the American civilians in the Philippines. Maybe she forget that there's a massive difference between being interned by your own government in your own country and being interned by a hostile foreign military while living in a foreign land.

Overall, I found this book to be pretty important in telling the overall story of the American civilians in Philippines during World War II. The book come highly recommended for anyone interested in this subject matter.

When you download a sample, you expect at least a little bit of the meat of the book so you can see if it's worth buying or not. In the case of this book, all you get is how the author uses people's names, and part of a pronounciation guide... useless.

When I started doing research for my honors thesis, I was excited to see how many books there were on the difference between American and Japanese business environments. I was immediately dissapointed; each and every book was filled with generalizations based on anecdotal evidence and weak extrapolations from history and language. Although Haru Yamada's book is an exception in that it actually has real data in it, that data is merely the analysis of a three-person American meeting and a three person Japanese meeting. That is hardly a representative sample.

The first thing you have to learn when attempting to interact with another culture is that culture does affect the way we communicate, and that bad experiences are often the result of misunderstanding. For someone with no experience with Japan, reading a book like this might be helpful. "Oh, OK. These are the things that I should watch out for." But there is always the danger that people will take the contents as gospel. In my experience, expecting that the Japanese will act a certian way only increases frustration and actually impedes progress. Its much better to start off on a clean slate, and to keep in mind that culture might throw off your "gut" impressions, so give people the benefit of the doubt.

What I would desperately like to see is a real linguistic study with hard conversation-derived data that merely attempts to discover what people DO, rather than how they ARE. As soon as you start talking about what an entire nation of people is like you officially leave the realm of sciences and enter the realm of stereotypes.

My dissertation is on US-Japan relations, so I've had to read a lot of these types of books. Its a shame more of them aren't like this. Granted, its not perfect, but if you had time to read only one book on the Japanese before jumping on a plane to negotiate your company's deal, I would hope this might be one of the books on the Airport bookstore's shelf... which it probably isn't.

If anyone is qualified to write about the subject of US-Japanese communication, it is Yamada. She is truly bi-cultural and bi-lingual, having significant experience in both the United States and Japan (her father's employment required the family to move in three year cycles between the United States and Japan, and she attended schools and universities in both countries). She adds to this experience sociolinguistic research credentials acquired under Deborah Tannen at Georgetown, which she puts to use in conducting a solid reseach study of US and Japanese business communication patterns. Yamada draws on this unique expertise to illustrate her points in a particularly clear and engaging way.

The very first page of this book made me wary. In an anecdotal style representative of the book as a whole, the author tells of her surprise at learning of the "American" version of Aesop's fable of the ant and the grasshopper (cicada) in which the ants turn the grasshopper away during winter because he played all summer. She offers an alternative "Japanese" version in which the ants invite the grasshopper in to join a party because they worked so hard during the summer doing their "role" singing. She uses this to justify two polarized paradigms of communication (though not merely communication) for each culture: Japanese are interdependent and Americans are independent. (For some reason she never uses Westeners or even English speakers but always Americans). Interesting story but I thought it sounded suspicious. Well, guess what? After interviewing DOZENS of Japanese people from a variety of backgrounds and asking them to finish the story, I have YET to find anyone who can even believe the "nice ant" ending much less anyone who had heard it previously or offers it. Even when asked to brainstorm alternative endings, this ending never appears, however, grasshopper/cicada raids on the ant community do. Yamada disingenuously offers this footnote "I have been told that a more literal translation of the original version exists in Japanese where the rejected grasshopper sadly walks away at the end of the story." Exists? Have been told? It doesn't merely exist but is the only version anyone seems to know. Furthermore, somehow she interprets this story as showing idealized American independence and "the importance of fending for yourself." According to her, "the point is that each person is responsible for his or her destiny" while the Japanese version shows "everyone has a role in society." Really? How can one justify that? How is the work ethic of a collective ant colony about fending for oneself? It would seem much more apt to describe some kind of socialist system. If this kind of interpretation of endings is valid, what about the endings offered in which the cicada invades the ants' mound? Sounds like Manchuria to me. The first page is indicative of the whole book. Things are overly stylized and distorted for academic symmetry. Anecdotes are highly spurious and sometimes only tenuously related to the point at hand. After the first page I simply couldn't accept any of them so that now looking back at the points of this book requires a pillar of salt. In fact, one gets the very distinct impression from the personal anecdotes given that, despite being a trained linguist specializing in cross-cultural communication, Yamada often just doesn't get the REAL point behind what people are saying or the genuine motivation for their actions. Exaggerations, misrepresentations, and stylizations abound obscuring what would otherwise be interesting points. Nonetheless, the book reads like an article from Ophrah's magazine (or what I would imagine they read like) if you inserted a bunch of romanized Japanese words with constant parenthetical translations (also the subject of some disagreement for many of the native speakers with whom I spoke). You finish the book almost as soon as you start. In particular, the "quotes" of parents instructing their children in each language were amusing. I have heard very similar things myself. The notes from the business meetings are interesting (particularly the Japanese section-head meeting) but watching her dissect the American meeting raises doubts in my mind about the validity of her Japanese analysis. She does introduce some interesting points but the sample is so small one feels distinctly disappointed in not getting to see these "principles" at work in other situations. It reminded me of the perfunctory "labs" that might go along with a Junior High science class. One of the things I enjoyed most about the book is the abundance of Japanese present. I actually learned a few useful words from this book, however, as most things in the book, they too become stylized. The discussion of AMAYAKASHISUGI (too sweet), WAGAMAMA (spoilt), TSUMETAI(cold), AND KATTE(selfish) is a good example. No one I spoke to agreed with the sharp opposition she set up among these terms. While this did provide for many interesting discussions, she should not have introduced these as terms defined merely by nurturer/nurtured over/under indulgence. For example, AMAYAKASHISUGI, to my understanding, might be better thought of as "doting" and used almost exclusively for parents. WAGAMA is not merely spoilt in the taking sense that we normally think of. In fact, the first situation I was given defining WAGAMAMA had a person giving a gift in expectation of a certain response and being disappointed not to receive it. Not what we expect exactly. TSUMETAI and KATTE simply aren't polarized in the way defined in the book. KATTE is not merely selfish but also snobbish. I was told a KATTE person may even get mad at the rain. TSUMETAI is used not only for under indulgent nurturers but also for the nurtured. Of course, a lot of the time nurturing is not the correct metaphor for the relationship and so this whole system breaks down anyway. Overall I found the book worth reading but not because it gave me answers. Quite the opposite. I found that it made me ask questions. Unfortunately, if you don't happen to have access to a large group of Japanese people to discuss these propositions with, I don't think you'll get nearly as much out of it. I actually think the central conceit of the book is correct, namely that Japanese communication grows out of a culture of interdependence and American communication from a culture of independence, however, the support for this thesis is mixed and often counterproductive.

Despite the title and despite the comment of an earlier reviewer, "All I Asking for Is My Body" is an extremely well written story that perfectly captures the Japanese-American experience in Hawaii. It is clear that Murayama himself experienced many of the things that his protagonist does, as his commentary on plantation life, reactions to the Pearl Harbor bombing, the traditional Japanese family system, and the importance of filial piety rings strong and true. Perhaps my only complaint about this book was its brevity, I wish Murayama would've gone into more detail at points, and the ending itself seemed a little too pat given the hardships the family had gone through together for years (decades really). I found myself wanting to know what Kiyoshi would have done had he not suddenly figured out the key to craps and freed his family from debt through gambling. After following his own beliefs into the army, would he have been willing or able to settle for plantation life again after the war?

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is the confidence all of the characters have in themselves as individuals. In contrast to John Okada's "No-No Boy," where the protagonist spends the entire novel searching for an identity (rather than feeling Japanese or feeling American he feels largely empty instead), that is not an issue in this story. Kiyoshi has a very strong family and community structure around him.

All I Asking for Is My Body is an excellent book, told very effectively through the eyes of a perceptive nisei who is often in difficult situations and forced to make tough choices. The experience of plantation workers in Hawaii is an oft-overlooked aspect of American history, but Murayama does a great job of bringing the time period to life again with a fluidity and grace that makes this story memorable and easy to understand, even for today's readers, who are removed from the time and place of this novel's action.

I especially recommend this book to those who have grown up in Hawaii. I was immediately struck by the powerful images captured by Murayama in "All I Asking For is My Body". The language and grammer are a perfect compliment to the depiction of the characters as well as the simple storyline. Murayama manages to pierce the soul of the reader, evoking emotions so powerful, one feels as if they live, over and over again, through the eyes of an ancestor. I loved this book.

This coming-of-age story feels *very* immediate and gripping, and yet, at least for this white female urban mainland reader, the experiences and world depicted are VERY far-removed from what I know. So, Murayama gives you that sense of urgent involvement that makes something really fun to read, while letting you look into a really intense world that you may nothing about before reading this book -- namely, sugar plantation life for Japanese immigrants in Hawaii in the 1940s. A real thumbs up, and a book I'll never forget.

I explored this book for my Hawaiian Lit class. The characters are vibrant and the use of local language draws the reader in to a world which is sadly starting to fade from the Islands.

Highly recommended.

Poor grammar? The book's pidgin English may often a nebulous maze to walk through for an untrained reader, but I find this book a lyrical joy to read everytime.

The novel itself is a bildungsroman of heartfelt and often painful emotions: being tied to the land and exploited by the plantation, obligation to family, and the constant yearning after hope.

Looking beyond the difficult pidgin "grammar," this is a quick, but worthwhile read.