Japanese American Books

George Aratani is a racist. Be it stemming from his lack of intelligence or belligerence, he made racist, bigoted statements directly to a licensed attorney. The attorney, his attorney son and their entire circle of friends who are all active in the legal community and organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center are all outraged by Aratani's actions. Were it not for the attorney's compassion due to Aratani's age, we would gladly take this matter Pro Bono and pursue it furthest extent legally and publicly. Aratani has intentionally placed himself in the public eye by touting himself as a philanthropist fighting to right the wrongs of past racism against Japanese-Americans. Hence, it is very newsworthy when such an individual hypocritically makes racist statements against a person and their family based on national origin. It is really pathetic to see people blindly supporting Aratani despite their lack of any personal knowledge of the matter. If Aratani is found to be spreadling lies and otherwise slandering or defaming the attorney's name, rest assured we are standing by for just such a such a fire starter. As Aratani is not the type to be a man an own up to his actions all we can do is to eagerly await his passing.

Hirahara's bio of George Aratani is a smooth narrative that provides a rare window into the life of this influencial citizen. Aratani not only was a powerful entrepreneur, but part of a renewed force of community amongst Japanese Americans. While Aratani is the focal point of this book, Hirahara does much to relate a broader timeline - pictures of Guadalupe, CA in the days when farming reigned, when Japanese, Mexicans, and European Americans worked shoulder to shoulder; the internment camps of the 40's and the discrimination that arose in a post-WWII nation; and the rebuilding of the Japanese American society in the United States.
American Son should be heralded for its insight and honesty, and for revealing the strength in the figure of Aratani.

The book content is great: well written, progresses naturally and fast enough to keep interest, makes one feel that the author is a real person with whom the reader can easily identify. A book to be shared with joy, but the cover is not at all attractive and did not meet my standards to be used as a special gift--which was one of the reasons I bought it.

I am the grandson of Myra Scovel, the author of this book.

I would like people contemplating a purchase of this book to know that this book is in the public domain, and thus available to them for free. It was copyrighted in 1962, and American books written between 1923 and 1963 had to have their copyright renewed 28 years after publication, or, as what happened with my grandmother's memoir, the text becomes part of the public domain.

The Internet Archive has made my grandmother's book available for free online. Amazon does not permit me to include a URL in a review, but using any of the popular search engines, you can search for "Internet Archive" (use quotes), and, once there, type this book's title into their search engine in order to find my grandmother's book on it. There, you can download copies in whatever format is convenient for you, at no cost to you whatsoever.

Or, you could of course pay Kessinger Publishing $23 to have them send you a bound print copy. I'd ask you to bear in mind that my grandmother's descendents do not see one penny from Kessinger's sales, since no royalties are due on public domain texts. Nor was Kessinger Publishing my grandmother's original publisher.

Frankly, I would rather you have the opportunity to read my grandmother's memoir for free rather, than for you to pay $23 of profit to these people who have repurposed the public domain for their own profit. As a fan and proponent of the Creative Commons and the public domain, I find that business model rather offensive.

The book itself is funny and insightful, and filled to the brim with notable faux pas committed by foreigners, particularly Americans, when working with or for the Japanese. While there is a certain amount of over-emphasis on the old stand-bys often associated with doing business with the Japanese, such as punctuality, bowing, and the appropriate way to dole out meishi, there are a few kernels of useful knowledge that are at once interesting, practical and effective. Each chapter is structured to give the reader some interesting facts upfront, the bad news on Japanese business and cultural practices, and finally an example, either real or imagined, of just how beneficial some Japanese managerial and cultural practices can be. A thoughtful and intelligently laid out glossary of key Japanese terms, along with a very useful bibliography for further reading, is included at the end of the book.

Some of the concepts from the book, such as apprenticeship and observational research, not only comprise very important aspects of Japanese culture, but also resonate with my own observations and experiences living and working with the Japanese. Finally, apart from the more interesting and colorful cultural and historical tidbits, the most important concept that I took from the book was the Japanese emphasis on non-verbal communication, and ambiguous, indirect speech. For many non-Japanese not of Asian heritage, this de-emphasizing of non-verbal communication can be quite daunting to comprehend and ultimately master.

After reading this book, I came to understand the importance of playing to Japanese strengths and matching my interests with Japanese needs and strengths. Working for a Japanese boss means emphasizing teamwork and group loyalty over individual accomplishment, and adroitly implementing your qualifications and expertise wherever appropriate as opposed to banking off of your experience, rank and seniority in the company. In short, the requirements for success when working for a Japanese boss are the same as those needed to work well with an American boss. Increasingly, your performance and results matter more, on both sides of the Pacific, than your willingness to work hard, which by now is a given in both Japan and the US. Those looking to work well with the Japanese must learn to pay very close attention to not only themselves, but also their surroundings in a way that is different from what they are accustomed to at home.

Written at the height of mass hysteria and public paranoia towards Japanese corporate influence, the book portrays an influential Japanese presence in America with exasperated resignation and tries to offer its readers keys to landing good paying jobs with the Japanese. That said, the reader should bear in mind that attitudes and behaviors have changed drastically on both sides of the Pacific in the twelve years since this book was published. Moreover, chapters such as `Sex and the Japanese Salaryman' are clearly thrown in to make the book more commercial, and other chapters, such as "Why Women Are Over the Hill and Out of the Door by Thirty', clearly are playing to the author's and the public's pre-conceived and antiquated notions of Japanese business. Chapters such as these, while marginally informative, attest to the dated nature of the text and essentially serve to simultaneously entertain the reader and stoke the flames of an already biased public. As such, this book occupies the opposite extreme of those books lauding everything Japanese, such as Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One, and ultimately does little to present the inquisitive reader with a clear, balanced representation of the Japanese people. The book would have been much stronger if some Japanese perspectives, particularly those of Japanese bosses, were included alongside those of American workers. If one really wanted to know how to work for a Japanese boss, then it stands to reason that one would rely heavily on the information and experiences of Japanese bosses who have managed non-Japanese personnel and firms outside of Japan. Instead, this book gives the reader copious anecdotal experiences from American employees of Japanese companies.

Nonetheless, the United States still is at the center of global trade, finance, and economy, and the specter of imminent and inevitable Japanese corporate rule is nothing more than a dim flight of fancy. Overall this book is better than most that I have read on the subject. In conclusion, given the unfolding events of the last decade, Ms. Bacarr would do well to write a similar text for the now economically insecure and lay-off threatened Japanese employee entitled `How to Work for an American Boss'.

If your new to Japanese culture, you might like this book. Lots of musings about all different aspects of Japanese work culture. The problem is, a lot of it has nothing to do with what the title suggests, such as AIDS in Japan, contraception in Japan, how prejudiced the Japanese can be, you name it, the author covered it. Even the Nan King massacre is brought up. For you Japan hands, this title will provide little that is new. The book was written at the time Japan was at it's economic peak, before the bubble burst and before the 10 year long recession. Because of that, there are a lot of assumptions regarding how powerful Japan was/is going to be in the year 2000, predictions that really didn't come true. Lastly, after reading the book, if it was your intention to work for a Japanese company, you're sure not going to want to after you read this, especially if you are a woman or do not like the idea of working six days a week.

Six months ago I was traveling along the coast of Washington, when I woke up to the terrible TV scenes of fire and death and collapsing buildings. I wrote my first thoughts in my diary: "As events unfold, I worry of our response. Will internal security become Gestapo like? Will we isolate ourselves? What about our civil rights or the rights of dark guys with beards and robes?" To know what could happen, we only needed to look back to the internment of Japanese-Americans or the case of "Tokyo Rose" (Iva Toguri).

If you are interested in World War II history or the excesses of patriotism, this is a book you should read and keep in your library. Mr. Howe has done a through job gathering the events and as a bonus describes the world of living in an enemy's country. I also value the picture Howe paints of life as a POW in Japan. It's nice that he has humanized some of the Japanese military, even to the point of letting us see that there were good and bad on both sides. Consider, for example, the support Iva received from the fighting GI's and compare it to the pettiness of the (mostly) non-combatant government agents.

Howe's writing style could have been more readable and there were a few errors of fact. (p. 244 Doolittle's first raid was in 1942 and not two years later.) These did not detract excessively.

Our challenge today as Americans is to avoid another case of "Tokyo Rose".

I had expected that the author would reveal a lot of what Tokyo Rose actually broadcast and, especially, the effect it had or was expected to have on our troops in the Pacific War. Plus, obviously, some followup on how she was eventually arrested in the U.S., etc. This text is a very good historical and legal account about Tokyo Rose (the one chosen for this book), her biography, her time in Japan, how she got involved, how she was arrested in the U.S. and so on, but the narrative is so detailed that it becomes boring and tends to lose the general reader's interest. On the other hand, if you are interested in Tokyo Rose's life and personal problems, and demand a lot of very detailed and specific biographical and prosecutorial information, this is the book for you. Sorry, not what I was looking for...

Reading this book is a chore, as the author has almost no ability to write a compelling account of one of the most ambitious and brutal totalitarian undertakings of modern times. However, most of the raw statistics and data from the Burma-Siam Railroad are so interesting that even he cannot get in the way of this incredible story.

I think part of the problem lies in the fact that Clifford is a military historian and suffers from an all too frequent "laundry list" approach to ennumerating different battalions and minutiae that were relocated, shipped out, etc. The book literally drags for pages at a time while the narrative simply stalls.

Another annoyance is the author's painfuly obvious pro-UK and somewhat veiled anti-American tone; in the first chapter he takes some jabs at the yanks without giving them credit for much of anything in the Asian theater. It's the old argument that the only reason the Americans were able to do anything at all was because of our industrial capacity. That argument is insulting and been proven erroneous many times over -- and besides which, if that were the case than how do you explain Vietnam? But the Brits frequently have this problem and are known the world over for their elitism and pomposity.

Although one of my favorite movies of all time is "Bridge on the River Kwai," I knew that much of the details were fiction. That's why I purchased this book, hoping to learn -- as promised -- the real story behind the Burma-Siam railroad.

However, the book's prose is so bland and uninspiring that it manages to make an otherwise interesting story boring. There is little narrative here, the paragraphs are large and clunky and the comma-free punctuation will annoy readers.

That said, if you have a deep interest in and knowledge of the Pacific Theater in World War II, you might find this book more approachable.

The author was a gifted teacher, writer and missionary who worked tirelessly to improve Japanese-American relations. This superb book introduces us first hand to the manner in which Americans sqaw Japan a century ago.

I'm not really going to go into the book's merits. There are some interesting ideas espoused but much of the book is quite dated and not of much importance. However, I just want to point out the terrible editing. This book must have 100 spelling errors at least. There are evn instances of words being flipped. There is no reason this book should have released and the editor should apologize for people wasting their money due to his laziness.

When I recieved a letter from a seller of this book asking for an order for it I thought: "Wow, shipwrecks... especially ones from WWII!" As a student in an oceanography-themed high school, I was right away interested in this book. The excerpts and details from the preview made it sound great.
However when the book came in, it wasn't what I thought. The book was nicely writen by Dr. Ballard, but the detail of each section was nothing to brag about. The book shows each area as a section. Beginning with Pearl Harbor, each section describes a certain battle scene involving the Navy. From Midway to Guadalcanal, each battle is shown with photos and diagrams. However these pictures and maps are not really enough to satisfy your thirst for WWII information. The text ends off in a way and talks about something else, and the lack of good photos make each section seem empty.
When I opened to the Midway chapter I expected more in-depth information on the battle. Instead I got a lot less than the National Geographic article on Midway from '99. None of the planes were mentiond much, and when they mentioned a PBY, they did not show what this scout plane looked like, making you have to use your imagination to picture the Catalina plane.
This book is supposed to mention salvage oeprations for the wrecks and exploration expeditions to them as well. However most of the text is a history lesson rather than a step in Marine Affairs. Out of the entire book I would say about 20% is actual expedition info.
As an owner of many of Dr. Ballards works, I would have to say this one is not one of his best.

This book purports to take the reader "on a tour" of Pacific warship shipwrecks. What a complete crock.
There are probably not a dozen wrecks covered here; all the photos save one are very small and mostly boring (unless you're really keen to see portholes underwater). Two photos come from the Japanese merchant wrecks at Truk, some of the most-photographed wrecks in the world (and offered in exceptionally better quality in other publications). The only large wreck illustration is a lovely Tom Freeman painting of the YORKTOWN wreck. Nice, but by no means worth the space on your bookshelf.
If you're someone who knows nothing about the Pacific war, then this is a reasonably good primer of some of the major actions. If you already know what the Battle of Midway was and have some idea that the Americans and Japanese each had aircraft carriers, this book will tell you nothing about the war you don't already know, and the photos, while nice, are available in dozens of other books. If you're looking for some interesting views of the shipwrecks Ballard has made his reputation on finding, you will find nothing of interest here.
Save your money, and pass this one up.

This is the first book which I have purchased concerning shipwrecks. I expected many photographs with information concerning the wrecks. What the book actually contained are sappy attempts to tell stories of the battles and Ballard retelling how he has found previous wrecks. This book was more about Ballard blowing his own horn, and less about the ships which went down during WWII. Save your money!

This is the first book which I have purchased concerning shipwrecks. I expected many photographs with information concerning the wrecks. What the book actually contained are sappy attempts to tell stories of the battles and Ballard retelling how he has found previous wrecks. This book was more about Ballard blowing his own horn, and less about the ships which went down during WWII. Save your money!

Very interesting account of World War II Pacific wreck sites. However, I was hoping for a detailed photographic examination of the wrecks.

Page Smith's view of Japanese-American evacuation and relocation runs counter to most current interpretations. Rather than trace the root cause to wartime hysteria and racism, Smith takes at face value the claim of "military necessity". Yet the evidence Smith does present does not support his final conclusions. However, Smith's work is popular amongst those who wish to defend relocation.

Unusually for a senior historian, Smith's work has a weakness unacceptable in a high school report: a lack of proper footnotes or endnotes. Instead Smith relies on spotty attribution and a limited "Note on Sources" at the end of the volume. What this conceals is a pattern of misquoting and misinterpretation. In particular, Smith selectively quotes from the report of Kenneth Ringle, an intelligence officer who broke into the Japanese consulate in Los Angeles and gathered material on plans for the use of Japanese-Americans as spies and saboteurs. Among the passages not quoted by Smith is a quote condeming Japanese-Americans as race-traitors for being more loyal to the United States than Japan.

Instead, Smith emphasized that evidence which, to him, shows that Japanese-Americans could not be trusted or assimilated into mainstream culture, a common calumny on Asian immigrants. He also dismisses the evidence given by the treatment of other enemy aliens, particularly those from Germany and Italy, the majority pf whom were left alone where they lived.

Smith's work was greeted by uniformly negative reviews in the professional journals and is now largely ignored by the historical profession. The danger is that Smith's prose, which is polished and appealing, will sway those who are not more familiar with the actual course of events.

Those interested in the subject should turn to the work of Roger Daniels and to the US Congressional Report "Personal Justice Denied."

This is a very annoying book. Page Smith was a professor of history at (if memory serves correctly) the University of California Santa Cruz. For those who aren't familiar, conservatives are an endangered species up there. That means Smith was a good old-fashioned New Deal Democrat, and of course his hero was FDR. Why he chose to write a book about FDR's darkest hour and the tragedy that stemmed from it I don't know, but he did.

Smith was (I understand he's since passed away) an oral historian, weaving accounts of common people into the narrative of whatever history he was retelling. He was a very good writer with a common touch, able to convey the emotions and motives of the various people in his narrative. On the other hand, he could be an only so-so historian, with the history itself, especially the causes and course of various events, getting buried in all the human interest detail.

Strangely, that didn't happen here, and this is a worse book for it. Smith has a decidedly skewed perspective on the evacuation of the Japanese-American population during World War II. He recounts that there were citizens descended from all three enemy nations living on the West Coast, tells you that only the Japanese were made to move and put in these relocation camps, and then concludes by insisting that this wasn't done out of racial discriminatory practices. The bald fact is that it couldn't have been anything else: non-citizens who were from enemy nations could have and probably should have been interned, but citizens have a separate set of rights, and no one ever talked of interning (as a for instance) Dwight Eisenhower or Chester Nimitz, let alone Albert Einstein. Fiorello LaGuardia and the Dimaggio brothers weren't relocated, either, and the Dimaggio's father (a resident of Oakland) was still an Italian citizen.

Still, the author does do some good, here and there. He makes clear that the story we were told in the '70s and '80s, that all Japanese-Americans were super-loyal to the US, was largely a fabrication (presumably to help with their case when they were trying to get compensation from the Federal government) and that the situation was a great deal more complex than that. There was considerable disloyalty, some of it cause by the relocation to the centers in the interior, some of it predating that and relating to the individual loyalty to the emporer and Japan. This part of the book is, to my mind, the most valuable.

Even so, Smith's book is really poorly done. While the writing is skilled and keeps things moving, he seems to feel he must recount every reorganization and personell move in the centers and in the government administration of them. There are also a lot of dry statistics (complete with bad math) and repetitive facts.

Lastly, some of the contextual history of the book (recounting the progress of the War itself, and of the political situation at home) is just flat wrong. Smith has Helen Gahagan Douglas fighting for her seat in the House of Representatives against Richard Nixon in 1944 (when Nixon was still in the Navy; their famous campaign against one another occurred in 1950, and was a Senate race), misdates the battle of Guadalcanal, and generally screws up the whole history of the war.

I was interested in the book because I knew Smith was going to defend Roosevelt, and in that I wasn't dissappointed. The defense, however, was so lame I didn't really even enjoy reading it. The chapter on the Executive Order enacting the Japanese-American evacuation is titled "The Decision Nobody Made" as if the order sprang out of the ground or something. He barely acknowledges Roosevelt had to sign it. The oral histories of the various people who were evacuated was interesting, but everything else in this book was poorly done, and frankly I would expect the oral history could be found elsewhere. I wouldn't recommend this book.

There is a substantial body of literature dealing with the Occupation of Japan and Japan's surge forward since; yet hardly anyone has addressed the significance of the enormous contributions in science and technology towards the realization of Japan's "Economic Miracle." In particular, nothing prior to this book has dealt with the significant work of the Occupation's Scientific and Technical Division. That Division was enormously important in bringing the Japanese scientists and engineers back into the mainstream of world S&T immediately after the end of WWII. The Division persuaded the Japanese Government to create new and more efficient methods of dealting with technological matters (including industrial standards, quality control, patents and other intellectual property); it managed the sending abroad of scientists and engineers to "catch up with" what was happening elsewhere; it sought and obtained support (from U.S. funds) to bring needed literature and laboratory equipment to Japan; and in many other ways helped put Japan's large body of scientists and engineers back in touch with world S&T. Those wishing to underestand fully the processes by which Japan has developed its current industrial strength with such unprecedented speed will find in this book much that is new and significant.

I had to read this book for school when we studied Japanese internment. And I can't say I loved it. The paragraphs were written in haikus, or something, and it took me two chapters to figure out who the main character was and if it was a boy or a girl. All in all, it wasn't a bad book about Japanese Internment in Canada, but I wouldn't read it over again if I could avoid it. "Shichan", the main character, was kind of blah, too. I think she should have spent mroe time thinking about her feelings and thoughts than talking about snow. It wasn't too long, though, which was pretty good.