Over the course of World War II, two million American military personnel occupied bases throughout the South Pacific, leaving behind a human legacy of at least 4,000 children born to indigenous mothers. Based on interviews conducted with many of these American-indigenous children and several of the surviving mothers, Mothers’ Darlings of the South Pacific explores the intimate relationships that existed between untold numbers of U.S. servicemen and indigenous women during the war and considers the fate of their mixed-race children. These relationships developed in the major U.S. bases of the South Pacific Command, from Bora Bora in the east across to Solomon Islands in the west, and from the Gilbert Islands in the north to New Zealand, in the southernmost region of the Pacific. The American military command carefully managed interpersonal encounters between the sexes, applying race-based U.S. immigration law on Pacific peoples to prevent marriage “across the color line.” For indigenous women and their American servicemen sweethearts, legal marriage was impossible; giving rise to a generation of fatherless children, most of whom grew up wanting to know more about their American lineage. Mothers’ Darlings of the South Pacific traces these children’s stories of loss, emotion, longing, and identity—and of lives lived in the shadow of global war. Each chapter discusses the context of the particular island societies and shows how this often determined the ways intimate relationships developed and were accommodated during the war years and beyond. Oral histories reveal what the records of colonial governments and the military have largely ignored, providing a perspective on the effects of the U.S. occupation that until now has been disregarded by Pacific war historians. The richness of this book will appeal to those interested the Pacific, World War II, as well as intimacy, family, race relations, colonialism, identity, and the legal structures of U.S. immigration.

Born to an African American father and Japanese mother, Frederick D. Kakinami Cloyd, the narrator of Dream of the Water Children, finds himself not only to be a marginalized person by virtue of his heritage, but often a cultural drifter, as well. Indeed, both his family and his society treat him as if he doesn't entirely belong to any world. Tautly written in spare, clear poetic prose, this memoir explores the specific contours of Japanese and African American cultures, as well as the broader experience of biracial and multicultural identity. To tell his story, Cloyd incorporates photographs and Japanese writing, history, and memory to convey both rich personal experience and significant historical detail. Bringing together vivid memories with a perceptive cultural eye, Dream of the Water Children brings readers closer to a biracial experience, opening up our understanding of the cultural richness and social challenges people from diverse backgrounds face.

Born in Taiwan, raised in the scholarly traditions of ancient China but forced into the Japanese educational system, Hu Taiming, the protagonist of Orphan of Asia, ultimately finds himself estranged from all three cultures. Taiming eventually makes his mark in the colonial Japanese educational system and graduates from a prestigious college. However, he finds that his Japanese education and his adoption of modern ways have alienated him from his family and native village. He becomes a teacher in the Japanese colonial system but soon quits his post and finds that, having repudiated his roots, he doesn't seem to belong anywhere. Thus begins the long journey for Taiming to find his rightful place, during which he is accused of spying for both China and Japan and witnesses the effects of Japanese imperial expansion, the horrors of war, and the sense of anger and powerlessness felt by those living under colonial rule. Zhuoliu Wu's autobiographical novel is widely regarded as a classic of modern Asian literature and a groundbreaking expression of the postwar Taiwanese national consciousness.

No one knows who invented the name, when it was first used, or even why a Japanese broadcaster should be dubbed 'Rose'--but two of the first American reporters in Occupied Japan, bent on finding "Tokyo Rose" at any cost, elicited the name of one of the women disk-jockeys on the popular Zero Hour program. Iva Toguri d'Aquino, foolishly, unfearingly let herself be styled, "the one and only Tokyo Rose." A UCLA-graduate, she had gone to Japan reluctantly in 1941 on family business. Red tape and dwindling funds prevented her from leaving, and an Australian journalist POW recruited her for the radio program. It's a startling story that Masayo Duus has uncovered almost by accident: Iva waited on her at the Toguri family store in Chicago in 1967, and the plain person didn't fit the sensational image. Iva ubbornly clung to her U.S. citizenship when the other nisei she knew recanted--else she could not have been tried for treason. D'Aquino served six years of a ten-year sentence in federal prison. In the 1970s, Japanese Americans convinced of her innocence began a movement that led to a presidential pardon in 1977.