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Sleeping on Potatoes
Sleeping on Potatoes, A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower by Carl Nomura is a true life account of how the U.S. government stripped away the citizenship of Japanese Americans during WWII, incarcerated them in American style concentration camps and confiscated their property. It's the story of how one man triumphed over hatred and racism to become a physicist and visionary leader in solid state physics. Told with a wry and warm sense of humor, this is a book we couldn't put down!
272 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 9, 2020
I loved it, but I think you have to have known Carl or at least heard some stories about him to really enjoy the book and understand his voice. It's not professional, but most people's memoirs wouldn't be either, and I kind of enjoy that. Made me laugh out loud several times. I also appreciated it because it's the first firsthand experience I've read of the Japanese internment camps - something we learned very little about in history classes - and I hope to read and learn more.
January 11, 2019
I read this because I worked in Dr. Nomura's organization in the 1970s. Although interesting, I thought there were some exaggerations.
January 31, 2021
both my husband and i thought this was a wonderful book.
July 22, 2015
I am glad the odd name for this book or its unusual cover didn't turn me away from reading it. It's had the opposite effect. Carl Normua conveys is a wonderful storyteller.
As a scientist and manager for several decades, technical writing was Carl Nomura’s specialty. Over 12 years, after retiring and relocating to an artistic community on the West Coast, he wrote short stories, typically 1 to 3 pages long, about his life.
Nomura writes well, even though he intentionally uses simple language: “…the book has a fog factor, which means that only an elementary grade level of education is required to understand it.” His writing style might seem ordinary, yet many hurdles in his life were extraordinary.
I found the first half of the book fascinating. Stories entitled “Family”, reveal his Japanese genealogy, including some details about the generational traditions of Japan concerning marriage and property. His parents were poorly matched Japanese immigrants. As children, one was incredibly spoiled and the other had been pampered. His father, Kazuichi, considerably older than his mother, was a man easy to hate because of his physical and emotional cruelty. He never denied himself any luxury, and often left his young family alone to struggle with the overwhelming physical and financial hardships of operating a vegetable farm. His mother, Mizuko, born into a significantly prominent Japanese lineage, lived a pampered lifestyle as a child. As a wife and mother in the United States she endured decades of extremely difficult hardship and physical labor, even delivering all but one of her children by herself because Kazuichi would not allow outside assistance.
Other stories reflect childhood escapades, many involving his brothers, and the effect of the Depression era on his family and community which led to bankruptcy, hunger, poverty and homelessness.
Learning about the mistreatment, confinement and humiliation he and other Japanese-Americans experienced in the Manzanar relocation camp, located in the desolate California desert, for the sake of national security following the attack on Pearl Harbor is heart-wrenching.
Carl includes factual information about the reasons behind the creation of these camps. Besides enduring losing his home and possessions when the government plucked his family out of their neighborhood, the discrimination and humiliation doesn’t end there. After living for years in Manzanar, Nomura was drafted into the Army, where his talents and intelligence were ignored.
Nomura’s resilience and ability to seek any good that can come out of a horrific situation is astonishing. Sleeping on Potatoes, the title and a story about where an exhausted Nomura tried to rest after a long day sorting potatoes in a dark cave, exemplifies ‘the lumpy bumpy ride [he] had in [his] formative years.”
For someone who had lived on the east and west coast of the United States and many states in between by the time he was in his early 20’s, Carl Nomura is a very grounded person who relied on skills inherited from his mother (wit, desire and determination) to achieve a passionate career, a stable marriage and loving family.
Many characters pepper his stories including his wife and children, family, friends, colleagues, and pets. A common theme is that kindness nurtures love when given or received. His reflections about childhood mentors are memorable as their influence ignited a passion for math and science. Despite the discrimination and countless rejections he encountered trying to register for college, he persevered and ultimately earned a Ph.D. in physics which led him to become a visionary leader in semiconductor development in a long, successful career at Honeywell in Minnesota.
Nomura confesses he ‘tried to the best of his ability, to tell it like it was but [he] admits that, when the outcome was boring, [he] lied. And you’ll never find out where.” In his stories about career, marriage and retirement his writing style deftly conveys the glint of humor one sees reflected in his eyes when looking at Nomura’s portrait on the book cover. His humor keeps the reader interested as stories about his life become more “normal”.
As a scientist and manager for several decades, technical writing was Carl Nomura’s specialty. Over 12 years, after retiring and relocating to an artistic community on the West Coast, he wrote short stories, typically 1 to 3 pages long, about his life.
Nomura writes well, even though he intentionally uses simple language: “…the book has a fog factor, which means that only an elementary grade level of education is required to understand it.” His writing style might seem ordinary, yet many hurdles in his life were extraordinary.
I found the first half of the book fascinating. Stories entitled “Family”, reveal his Japanese genealogy, including some details about the generational traditions of Japan concerning marriage and property. His parents were poorly matched Japanese immigrants. As children, one was incredibly spoiled and the other had been pampered. His father, Kazuichi, considerably older than his mother, was a man easy to hate because of his physical and emotional cruelty. He never denied himself any luxury, and often left his young family alone to struggle with the overwhelming physical and financial hardships of operating a vegetable farm. His mother, Mizuko, born into a significantly prominent Japanese lineage, lived a pampered lifestyle as a child. As a wife and mother in the United States she endured decades of extremely difficult hardship and physical labor, even delivering all but one of her children by herself because Kazuichi would not allow outside assistance.
Other stories reflect childhood escapades, many involving his brothers, and the effect of the Depression era on his family and community which led to bankruptcy, hunger, poverty and homelessness.
Learning about the mistreatment, confinement and humiliation he and other Japanese-Americans experienced in the Manzanar relocation camp, located in the desolate California desert, for the sake of national security following the attack on Pearl Harbor is heart-wrenching.
Carl includes factual information about the reasons behind the creation of these camps. Besides enduring losing his home and possessions when the government plucked his family out of their neighborhood, the discrimination and humiliation doesn’t end there. After living for years in Manzanar, Nomura was drafted into the Army, where his talents and intelligence were ignored.
Nomura’s resilience and ability to seek any good that can come out of a horrific situation is astonishing. Sleeping on Potatoes, the title and a story about where an exhausted Nomura tried to rest after a long day sorting potatoes in a dark cave, exemplifies ‘the lumpy bumpy ride [he] had in [his] formative years.”
For someone who had lived on the east and west coast of the United States and many states in between by the time he was in his early 20’s, Carl Nomura is a very grounded person who relied on skills inherited from his mother (wit, desire and determination) to achieve a passionate career, a stable marriage and loving family.
Many characters pepper his stories including his wife and children, family, friends, colleagues, and pets. A common theme is that kindness nurtures love when given or received. His reflections about childhood mentors are memorable as their influence ignited a passion for math and science. Despite the discrimination and countless rejections he encountered trying to register for college, he persevered and ultimately earned a Ph.D. in physics which led him to become a visionary leader in semiconductor development in a long, successful career at Honeywell in Minnesota.
Nomura confesses he ‘tried to the best of his ability, to tell it like it was but [he] admits that, when the outcome was boring, [he] lied. And you’ll never find out where.” In his stories about career, marriage and retirement his writing style deftly conveys the glint of humor one sees reflected in his eyes when looking at Nomura’s portrait on the book cover. His humor keeps the reader interested as stories about his life become more “normal”.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2009
From Manzanar to the Corporate Tower
Carl Nomura’s memoir, Sleeping on Potatoes: A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower, is an unforgettable story of growing up in the United States as a Japanese-American. From a childhood of poverty in the twenties to the Great Depression in the thirties, from high school’s Pomp and Circumstance to Manzanar’s Relocation Camp during WWII, and from the University of Minnesota in the fifties to fatherhood and Honeywell, Inc. – Sleeping on Potatoes is an evocative account of Nomura’s life and times.
It’s also the story of exile and a celebration of an irrecoverable past, all told with a dry wit and the serenity that comes from true humanistic learning.
Born in a boxcar somewhere between Deer Lodge and Three Forks, Montana in 1922, Nomura graduated from Van Nuys High School in Los Angeles in 1941, just in time to be incarcerated, along with all Japanese-Americans from California to the Midwest. He and his family were sent to Manzanar, an isolated wind-swept relocation camp where they were placed behind barbed wire fences, guarded by military personnel and watched closely by armed security forces in guard towers. After the war, Nomura earned a Bachelor of Physics (1948), a Masters of Science (1949) and a Ph.D. in Physics (1953) from the University of Minnesota. He became a research physicist for Honeywell and later as an executive he founded the solid-state electronics division. Nomura’s been hailed as a visionary and leader in the field of semiconductor research. He retired Corporate Senior Vice-President of Honeywell.
Carl Nomura’s memoir, Sleeping on Potatoes: A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower, is an unforgettable story of growing up in the United States as a Japanese-American. From a childhood of poverty in the twenties to the Great Depression in the thirties, from high school’s Pomp and Circumstance to Manzanar’s Relocation Camp during WWII, and from the University of Minnesota in the fifties to fatherhood and Honeywell, Inc. – Sleeping on Potatoes is an evocative account of Nomura’s life and times.
It’s also the story of exile and a celebration of an irrecoverable past, all told with a dry wit and the serenity that comes from true humanistic learning.
Born in a boxcar somewhere between Deer Lodge and Three Forks, Montana in 1922, Nomura graduated from Van Nuys High School in Los Angeles in 1941, just in time to be incarcerated, along with all Japanese-Americans from California to the Midwest. He and his family were sent to Manzanar, an isolated wind-swept relocation camp where they were placed behind barbed wire fences, guarded by military personnel and watched closely by armed security forces in guard towers. After the war, Nomura earned a Bachelor of Physics (1948), a Masters of Science (1949) and a Ph.D. in Physics (1953) from the University of Minnesota. He became a research physicist for Honeywell and later as an executive he founded the solid-state electronics division. Nomura’s been hailed as a visionary and leader in the field of semiconductor research. He retired Corporate Senior Vice-President of Honeywell.
February 5, 2009
I got this book from my grandfather, who worked with Nomura years ago. I read maybe the first 1/3 or 1/2 of the book before I gave up. I'm just not drinking the Kool-Aid on this thing. His stories could be really interesting, but he tells them with such an aire of detachment that it made me wonder if he'd actually lived them. I looked hard to find any emotional attachment by the author and found none. He watches the neighbor kid jerk off and doesn't have anything to say about it? That's comic gold, for christ sake!!!! Nomura manages to dump that one on the roadside with the rest of his promising but ultimately undeveloped stories.
It's his memoirs, you'd think he would have a connection to them...maybe an insight or lesson learned...maybe...no?...okay...pickle stork?...anybody...
If you have a hankering for memoirs that actually offer emotion and insight, stick with Fulgum.
It's his memoirs, you'd think he would have a connection to them...maybe an insight or lesson learned...maybe...no?...okay...pickle stork?...anybody...
If you have a hankering for memoirs that actually offer emotion and insight, stick with Fulgum.
August 22, 2009
Carl gave me this book to read and I really did enjoy it. He is very honest and forthright - like he is in life. Although it's not a professional writing job, it is natural - like he is telling you in person. I wanted to cry in places and I really did laugh in others. He accomplished so much in his life despite all the hardships he had to endure. Carl is such a positive person and this really came out in his story. I think it's great that he wrote this book for his family especially although I think all of his friends would enjoy it very much.
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November 1, 2017A true story about the life of living in a Japanese Interment Camp during WWII. I knew the author and the story is autobiographical, unfortunately I read the story after his passing, I wished I knew more about him before.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews