Altered Lives, Enduring Community examines the long-term effects on Japanese Americans of their World War II experiences: forced removal from their Pacific Coast homes, incarceration in desolate government camps, and ultimate resettlement. As part of Seattle's Densho: Japanese American Legacy Project, the authors collected interviews and survey data from Japanese Americans now living in King County, Washington, who were imprisoned during World War II. Their clear-eyed, often poignant account presents the contemporary, post-redress perspectives of former incarcerees on their experiences and the consequences for their life course. Using descriptive material that personalizes and contextualizes the data, the authors show how prewar socioeconomic networks and the specific characteristics of the incarceration experience affected Japanese American readjustment in the postwar era. Topics explored include the effects of incarceration and resettlement on social relationships and community structure, educational and occupational trajectories, marriage and childbearing, and military service and draft resistance. The consequences of initial resettlement location and religious orientation are also examined.

Fred Korematsu’s decision to resist F.D.R.’s Executive Order 9066, which provided authority for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, was initially the case of a young man following his heart: he wanted to remain in California with his white fiancée. However, he quickly came to realize that it was more than just a personal choice; it was a matter of basic human rights. After refusing to leave for incarceration when ordered, Korematsu was eventually arrested and convicted of a federal crime before being sent to the internment camp at Topaz, Utah. He appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, which, in one of the most infamous cases in American legal history, upheld the wartime orders. Forty years later, in the early 1980s, a team of young attorneys resurrected Korematsu’s case. This time, Korematsu was victorious, and his conviction was overturned, helping to pave the way for Japanese American redress. Lorraine Bannai, who was a young attorney on that legal team, combines insider knowledge of the case with extensive archival research, personal letters, and unprecedented access to Korematsu his family, and close friends. She uncovers the inspiring story of a humble, soft-spoken man who fought tirelessly against human rights abuses long after he was exonerated. In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded Korematsu the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Urban Health: A Global Perspective, Fifteenth Edition outlines the problems, issues, and solutions to health in urban areas on a global scale. The book focuses on several issues which impact the health of cities, such as the environment, pollution, climate change, ecology, social equity, health inequalities, and health problems. In addition, it covers several empirical studies which explain economic, political, and the social issues influencing health in urban areas. Pandemics and sustainable development will also be discussed. Provides global case studies on the issues of urban health and air quality Emphasizes the importance of health and sustainability from environmental pollution and climate change Discusses principles from medical professionals and researchers on health in urban areas

No-No Boy, John Okada’s only published novel, centers on a Japanese American who refuses to fight for the country that incarcerated him and his people in World War II and, upon release from federal prison after the war, is cast out by his divided community. In 1957, the novel faced a similar rejection until it was rediscovered and reissued in 1976 to become a celebrated classic of American literature. As a result of Okada’s untimely death at age forty-seven, the author’s life and other works have remained obscure. This compelling collection offers the first full-length examination of Okada’s development as an artist, placing recently discovered writing by Okada alongside essays that reassess his lasting legacy. Meticulously researched biographical details, insight from friends and relatives, and a trove of intimate photographs illuminate Okada’s early life in Seattle, military service, and careers as a public librarian and a technical writer in the aerospace industry. This volume is an essential companion to No-No Boy.

The first multi-author collection of social scientific scholarship on North American Buddhists, this volume examines the current state of research and key aspects of Buddhist life and experience in social context. Case studies feature Southeast Asian, Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean, meditation-oriented, and socially engaged Buddhists.

Tacoma’s vibrant Nihonmachi of the 1920s and '30s was home to a significant number of first generation Japanese immigrants and their second generation American children, and these families formed tight-knit bonds despite their diverse religious, prefectural, and economic backgrounds. As the city’s Nisei grew up attending the secular Japanese Language School, they absorbed the Meiji-era cultural practices and ethics of the previous generation. At the same time, they positioned themselves in new and dynamic ways, including resisting their parents and pursuing lives that diverged from traditional expectations. Becoming Nisei, based on more than forty interviews, shares stories of growing up in Japanese American Tacoma before the incarceration. Recording these early twentieth-century lives counteracts the structural forgetting and erasure of prewar histories in both Tacoma and many other urban settings after World War II. Lisa Hoffman and Mary Hanneman underscore both the agency of Nisei in these processes as well as their negotiations of prevailing social and power relations.

Introduction: Ethnic heritage across the generations: racialization, transnationalism, and homeland -- History and the second generation -- The prewar Nisei: Americanization and nationalist belonging -- The postwar Nisei: biculturalism and transnational identities -- Racialization, citizenship, and heritage -- Assimilation and loss of ethnic heritage among third-generation Japanese Americans -- The struggle for racial citizenship among later-generation Japanese Americans -- Ethnic revival among fourth-generation Japanese Americans -- Ethnic heritage, performance, and diasporicity -- Japanese American taiko and the remaking of tradition -- Performative authenticity and fragmented empowerment through taiko -- Diasporicity and Japanese Americans -- Conclusion: Japanese Americans ethnic legacies and the future