About this item
Highlights
- The Japanese government attacked the US Pacific fleet in Hawaii on 7 December 1941.
- Author(s): Stanley Hayami
- 204 Pages
- Biography + Autobiography, Military
Description
About the Book
Stanley Hayami was sixteen when he was sent to Heart Mountain, an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. He kept a diary of his life in the camps, augmented with sketches and drawings. In 1944, like many young Nisei men, he was drafted into the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team, an all-Nisei unit, continuing to write and earning a Bronze Star. He never lost his faith in America, and remained defiantly patriotic to the last. He was killed in combat in Northern Italy on April 23rd, 1945, while trying to help a fellow soldier. He was nineteen years old. This book is based on his diary, now in the permanent collection of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, Ca.Book Synopsis
The Japanese government attacked the US Pacific fleet in Hawaii on 7 December 1941. On the following day the US declared war on Japan and for those of Japanese decent, most of whom were American Citizens, life would never be the same. This book focuses on a dark time in our history.Review Quotes
This slender book, deftly annotated by Joanne Oppenheim with a stirring Foreword by Senator Daniel Inouye, is also "one for the ages." Without question, this... will quickly become a minor classic. --Arthur A. Hansen, Professor Emeritus, History & Asian American Studies, California State University, Fullerton
Rare indeed are glimpses into the mind and heart of a boy as he becomes a man, but even more intriguing about Stanley Hayami's story is that it is told in his own voice, penned as his sixteen-year-old life of innocence and idealism unfolded in an American concentration camp and ended, still in his teens as a new recruit, trying to help a buddy in one of the fiercest and last battles in Europe in World War II.
Author Joanne Oppenheim gets title page credit as annotator, but has done much more than the word implies, weaving a gripping tale that will hold the interest of the young adults at whom it is aimed and will be appreciated by general readers as well.
Oppenheim educates Americans through a journey of words, pictures and illustrations - a journey of our past as an American people. This book belongs in the library of every American historian.
Book Description
Joanne Oppenheim painstakingly reconstructs the experience of Stanley Hayami, a real-life teenager whose attention was focused on school, sports, and hope for the future, and who then joined the Army to fight for freedom for all. Oppenheim sensitively contextualizes Hayami's words with background comments.