Looking After Minidoka An American Memoir [Paperback]

During World War II, 110,000 Japanese Americans were removed from their homes and incarcerated by the US government. In Looking After Minidoka the internment camp years become a prism for understanding three generations of Japanese American life, from immigration to the end of the twentieth century. Nakadate blends history, poetry, rescued memory, and family stories in an American narrative of hope and disappointment, language and education, employment and social standing, prejudice and pain, communal values and personal dreams.

Poetic yet sharply honest, the family story unfolds within the larger context of the national saga. You'll wince but read it anyway. Your soul will be better for it.This book is highly readable and contains fascinating details not usually covered in other books on Japanese American history.2014 AAUP Public and Secondary School Library SelectionNeil Nakadate's clear-eyed, carefully researched but nonetheless passionate book is rich with the closely observed details of internment camp life.? Looking After Minidoka, written with wisdom, understanding, and a writer's eye for the stories worth telling, is not only an important contribution to the literature of internment but also a important story about the promise and peril of America.This remarkable book is highly recommended reading for (younger) Sansei, Yonsei, Gosei and members of the burgeoning hapa population, as well of those of whatever background, in and out of educational institutions, who seek enrichment as individuals and communal beings within a multicultural nation via greater awareness of the Nikkei experience in the United States.By his skillful blending of history and memoir, Nakadate lifts the veil on a story too often shrouded in shadow, revealing beneath a portrait of a Japanese-American family in search of the differences between home and homeland.Neil Nakadates Looking after Minidoka: An American Memoir is a beautifully crafted, powerfully moving American narrativel3)