After Camp: Portraits in Midcentury Japanese American Life and Politics

by Greg Robinson

This book illuminates various aspects of a central but unexplored area of American history: the midcentury Japanese American experience. A vast and ever-growing literature exists, first on the entry and settlement of Japanese immigrants in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, then on the experience of the immigrants and their American-born children during World War II. Yet the essential question, “What happened afterwards?” remains all but unanswered in historical literature. Excluded from the wartime economic boom and scarred psychologically by their wartime ordeal, the former camp inmates struggled to remake their lives in the years that followed. This volume consists of a series of case studies that shed light on various developments relating to Japanese Americans in the aftermath of their wartime confinement, including resettlement nationwide, the mental and physical readjustment of the former inmates, and their political engagement, most notably in concert with other racialized and ethnic minority groups.

Genres: History

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Nathaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Broadly speaking, scholarship and popular writings focus on discussing Asian Americans in "their" decade. A lot of writings about different ethnic groups load almost chronologically: Chinese, then Japanese, then Korean, then Vietnamese, etc. To understand Asian Americans, we have to understand each ethnicity's experience across the last 150 years.

A lot has been written about the experience of Japanese Americans in the incarceration camps, but much less about their experience in the decades after. Greg provides a detailed, but not tedious look at how Japanese Americans recovered post incarceration and how they interacted with other groups through the 1960s. He ties Japanese-American specific events and experiences post-war with history that most American readers will be familiar with. He uses contemporary writings and speeches to give the reader a peak into political and cultural discourse of Japanese Americans in this critical period.

Greg does a very good job of expressing the nuance of this period and people. Unsurprisingly Japanese Americans had a wide range of beliefs and reactions post-incarceration and Greg does a good job channelling that.

I really recommend this for people interested in academic writings about Asian-American history in the 20th century

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

An illuminating read by an author who clearly knows his subject. It was a little too advanced for me- unsurprising, given that it seems intended for an academic audience who will already have considerable knowledge.