Graphic novel shows Sacramento s Japanese American WWII activists like you ve never seen
Sacramento Bee 5/5/2021 Ashley Wong, The Sacramento Bee
May 4 Many may know the story of Mitsuye Endo, the Sacramento-raised Japanese American who fought and won her freedom from incarceration during World War II, but few know who she was outside of that legacy.
That s just one of the history gaps the artists and authors behind We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Acts of Resistance During World War II, a graphic novel out May 18 from the Wing Luke Museum in Washington, are hoping to fill.
Narratives about Japanese American incarceration camps sometimes paint the prisoners as accepting of their fates, or that many saw it as a sacrifice made in the name of American acceptance. The novel s authors, Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura, fiercely refuse to believe all Japanese Americans felt this way.
May 4 Many may know the story of Mitsuye Endo, the Sacramento-raised Japanese American who fought and won her freedom from incarceration during World War II, but few know who she was outside of that legacy. That's just one of the history gaps the artists and authors behind "We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Acts of Resistance During World War II," a graphic novel out May 18 from the Wing .
‘We Hereby Refuse: JA Resistance to Wartime Incarceration’ to Hit Bookstores May 18
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SEATTLE Three voices. Three acts of defiance. One mass injustice.
As the nation comes to a reckoning with a wave of anti-Asian violence that is rooted in a history of systemic exclusion and racism, the Wing Luke Museum and Chin Music Press are publishing a graphic novel that sheds new light on a major part of that history – the World War II exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans.
“We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration” is the story of camp as you’ve never seen it before. While they complied when evicted from their homes in 1942, many refused to submit to imprisonment in American concentration camps without a fight. Based upon painstaking research, “We Hereby Refuse” presents an original vision of America’s past with disturbing links to the American present.