Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family, Library Edition

by Lauren Kessler

Beginning in 1903 with the arrival of sixteen-year-old Masuo Yasui in Oregon, the author chronicles the struggles and ultimate triumph of three generations of Japanese Americans.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Book Club, Japan, Biography, Audiobook, Asian American

7 pages, Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Lauren Kessler is an award-winning author and immersion reporter who combines lively narrative with deep research to explore everything from the gritty world of a maximum security prison to the grueling world of professional ballet; from the wild, wild west of the anti-aging movement to the hidden world of Alzheimer’s sufferers; from the stormy seas of the mother-daughter relationship to the full court press of women’s basketball. She is the author of 12 works of narrative nonfiction, including Pacific Northwest Book Award winner Dancing with Rose, Washington Post bestseller Clever Girl and Los Angeles Times bestseller The Happy Bottom Riding. She is also the author of Oregon Book Award winner Stubborn Twig, which was chosen as the book for all Oregon to read in honor of the states 2009 sesquicentennial.

Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, O magazine, Utne Reader, The Nation, newsweek.com and salon.com. Club www.laurenkessler.com

Reviews

[Ruby Grad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every Oregonian should read Stubborn Twig. It is the history of a Japanese American family, largely based in Hood River, starting with the father's coming to the U.S., landing at Seattle, in 1910. The author charts not only the course of this family's history, but also the course of Japanese Americans in the United States generally, focused on Hood River. It is well-written and fascinating. It's a bit of history everyone should know about, from the xenophobia and racism to the internment during WWII.

[Mbgirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

The internal fortitude and courage forged by this family... facing injustices from many angles.’easy to become embittered and want to leave, not be a part of a oft-tilted system toward non-ethnics.

Hood River— Fruit Loop—- excelled as farmers and at their craft. Were vanguards in technique too.

The title is so apropos of their fighting , indomitable spirit that refused to be broken. For some rwaonC this awesome amazing story reminds me of Hillebrand’s Unbroken

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I attended Concordia Academy in Portland Oregon, at that time a Lutheran boarding highschool. A roommate from Idaho said he could remember begging for berries along the barbed wire fence of an internment camp there. He would have been born in 1935 or 1936 and have been seven at the time of the internment. I, of course, said, "Internment, what internment?" In my senior year, we played Hood River Highscool in football. I believe it was the only game we won that year. I would like to go back over their roster to see if any Japanese Americans played in that game.
Hood River has often been the stop off point on trips to see my brother in southwest Washington and on business trips to Pendleton Oregon. One of my favorite seminary classmates also lived there.
At one time I was going to write an article on the internment and researched Oregon newspapers so I've been aware for some time that Hood River was a hotbed of anti Japanese feeling in Oregon, and as it turns out, in the entire country.
While reading a hard copy I discovered this book is available as a free down load so I am going to finish it that way. The reader knows how to pronounce the names correctly.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a fascinating read. A true look into the lives of those effected by the evacuation order during WW II. The book is painfully beautiful. The narrative keeps you coming back for more. I found myself alternately intrigued, angered, disheartened, heartened, pleased, and thoughtful about how the family's life unfolded. Sprinkle in a bit of righteous indignation and you've got the feel of the book. It leaves you questioning... How would you have reacted if you were there then? If you were Caucasian? of German decent? of Japanese decent? What would you have done if you were the President of the United States? Would it change how you treat your neighbors know the President of the United States didn't want them here, didn't trust them? Would you have the courage (like Smith) to say 'no'?

Maybe it is in the answers to those questions that the power of this book truly lies. For, if we don't learn from the past...we are doomed to repeat it. And that can not and should not happen.

[Faith Reidenbach · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book worthwhile because I hadn't known many details about the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. For example, I had always pictured the internment "camps" as reasonably nice places where families at least stayed together.

As part of a community reading program celebrating Oregon's 150th birthday, everyone in Oregon is being invited to read this book this year. If you already know your WWII history, you're going to have to care A LOT about the one family featured, because, true to its subtitle, that's all the book is about.

The family was interesting in their way; by the time of WWII they had amassed a fortune in Hood River. But the book is dry in many places--the author seems to have wanted to use every scrap of her research, such as listing every school-year activity of all 8 of the second-generation children. Also, it's weirdly organized--it's divided into 3 sections, one per generation, so that inevitably some of the material is repetitive.

Still, people in the Pacific Northwest, particularly, will appreciate some of the tidbits Kessler shares. For example, one of the worries after Pearl Harbor was that Japanese frogmen would invade the US by disguising themselves as salmon and swimming up the Columbia! In case all you ever read is this review, please know that no Japanese American was ever convicted of espionage during WWII.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A riveting story and an important piece of Oregon’s history.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart-wrenching, superbly written account of the racial-bigotry, lying, hatred, and jealousy of white America, with a focus on Hood River, OR, in the years before the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor, that was behind the real reason (government studies reported the American Japanese were not a threat) for Roosevelt’s and government’s internment of the American Japanese. Using a true family with family interviews with good historical research this is a detailed accounting of the impact on each individual; their successes even with their trials with hatred and jealousy that they experienced. Then the most detailed, tear-jerking account of what each individual in the family encountered with the government’s curfew, travel, and internment policies. “Daughter - a senior at the U of O being the sole lonely individual late at night watching the train pass by that carried her family from Hood River South to internment with only what they could carry.” Plus the government’s denial to let her ‘break curfew’ (8pm) to attend her own graduation (over at 10pm) followed by her eventual escape, via a midnight bus, to Colorado. And of course, detailed descriptions of what the camps were like down to the fact that the latrines had no doors so the ladies tried to only go at night rather than in full few of the whole camp. Putting up cardboard to protect their straw-self-stuffed mattresses from the leaking melting tar of the poorly constructed small one room family ‘units’, plus the horrible day heat and freezing night conditions of the desert intermixed with their unsuccessful efforts to stop the ‘stealing’ of their properties and loss of 30 years of hard work. Good conclusion on the continued racism, bigotry and discrimination in Hood River following the few returning Japanese and the results of all of the above (plus 2 suicides and resultant Diaspora) on the subsequent children and grandchildren.

[Amy Tanikawa · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a 3rd generation Oregonian, I love to read about the "REAL" history of Oregon. Lauren Kessler presented this story so thoroughly and heart felt, I was caught from the first chapter. My children are Gosei, 5th generation Japanese American. Their grandfather Tanikawa and his family were sent to an internment camp when he was in late middle school. As in this book, his grandfather arrived in Seattle around 1901. His father fought in World War I. They had a productive life in this country prior to 1942. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, they were instantly perceived as enemies, losing their American citizenship, possessions, and a sense of family structure and community. Hearing how this impacted future generations, made me aware of how my husband and children are a legacy of this experience. Sad to learn that of all minorities are the least likely to marry within their race, possibly due to the abrupt rejection of their racial identity. In rural Oregon, my children need friendships and family within the Japanese community. Thinking of ways to bring more awareness and connection into our community as well as traveling to Eugene more often to participate in activities.

[Had Walmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book spoke to me of the underlying history of Japanese residents of Hood River
near here - Thanks to you LauraK. for his very articulate and detailed research

[Ames A · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a five ⭐️ read for content, and 2.5 ⭐️ for presentation of that content. It’s a great read, covering a multigenerational journey, but is written in a fairly wooden manner, making it feel a lot longer than it is.

[Rachelfm · Rating 5 out of 5]

All Americans should read this book. I've rarely been so engaged in a non-fiction work as I was in Stubborn Twig. First of all, it's a compelling story of a remarkable, "only-in-America" kind of Japanese immigrant, Masuo Yasui. Yasui immigrated to Portland, worked on the railroad in the intermountain west, learned English, converted to Christianity, and settled in Hood River to be an extremely successful entrepreneur and orchardist.

While his story is singular, the author is careful not to go into hagiography. With excellent contextualization of both PNW history and Japanese culture (particularly for the issei and nisei , Kessler uses lots of primary sources to provide a balanced view of a hard-working outsider and respected local "cultural informant*" who was as distant and authoritarian toward his children as he was connected and essential within his community.

Through Depression, increasing anti-Japanese sentiment, and shameful legislation, the Yasui family prospers through diligence and exceptionalism. The barriers the family broke could be equated to the integration firsts of the Civil Rights movement. Then, the war came.

The Yasuis were wrenched apart through internment, civil disobedience, and flight east to avoid the forcible removal of Japanese Americans during WWII. Min Yasui (son #3) goes down in history for his legal challenge of the executive orders restricting Japanese Americans (he gets arrested for breaking curfew whilst trying to report for military service... he was already a commissioned officer.) The first Japanese American admitted to the Oregon bar, his civil disobedience and arrest goes all the way to the Supreme Court.

Most mindblowing two factoids that stick out: 1. Earl Warren is on the circuit court of appeals for Yasui v. U.S. He doesn't find for Yasui; no wonder Eisenhower thought he was a sure bet as chief justice. It's ironic then that a decade later Warren transforms into the civil rights judge, bringing in a unanimous Brown v. Board in his first year on the Supreme Court. 2. American GIs who had served alongside the nisei in Europe were among the most vocal protesters of the internment and anti- Japanese discrimination along the west coast. I guess there's another story of the armed forces integrating ahead of the rest of us.

One of the great strengths of the book is in the author's ability to weave the generations together and keep all the actors (9 kids!) straight while still keeping the story relatively chronological and sensible. You can get slivers of insight about the future without spoiling the next generation's story.

This is a masterful, compelling, and deeply moving story. Run to your library and request it now.


*I mean this in the most positive, Anne Fadiman-esque use of the word.

[K. Lincoln · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stubborn Twig should be required reading for every high school in the United States.

Like many Americans, I knew virtually nothing about the unconstitutional internment, property seizure, and harrassment of ethnic Japanese before, during and after World War II in the United States.

This book takes a prominent Hood River, Oregon family and follows their struggles as Issei (first generation immigrants) carve out a home in the small town amongst judicial and societal bigotry, loose everything, and then suffer emotional and financial effects as Nisei (second generation) and Sansei (third generation) face their own troubles carving out their identity as Americans.

What Stubborn Twig does is put a face on the internment experience. You find yourself cheering for Masuo Yasui and his wife as they break race barriers in Hood River's town, business, and schools.

You find yourself wincing with shame as their children are ostracized from clubs and normal teenager dating behavior.

And you find yourself chilled with loss at their personal tragedies.

As a person more-than-averagelly interested in the history of Japanese and American relations, there wasn't much in this book that was surprisingly new, just a level of detail that was fascinating. This is a real family who lived real lives in a tumultous time in Oregon's history.

What did constitute new information to me was the extensive coverage of Nisei son Min Yasui's struggle for redress for the crimes (yep, I used that word on purpose) committed against ethnic Japanese during World War II by the United States government.

The detailing of his fight, purposely breaking laws to be a test case, attempting to force the Supreme Court to rule, etc, and how his children carried it through may feel a bit long and dry sometimes, which is why the book doesn't quite get the 5th star, but for readers interested either in history or in facing a very dark time in US history it is definitely interesting.

This book's Snack Designation Rating: Tart and sweet Hood River Apple slices for how pushing through the hard-to-swallow sour racism to the sweetness of humanity's ability to survive and hope for healing sweetness in the end.

[Bonnieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A personal story of the Masuo Yasui family of Hood River, Oregon. Masuo was the first of the family, first generation or Issei, to come to America in 1908. The book traces his coming here as a teen,working on the railroad, and finally settling in Hood River. The racism of the early part of the century is traced while Masuo is successful in building multiple businesses, including stores, rental property, and especially creating the fruit industry of the Hood River area.

The book is both a sociology and history text, showing the sentiment of European Americans in the northwest toward any Asians settling near them. It also traces the federal attempts (often successful) to keep Asians from becoming U.S. citizens, including the 1924 immigration quota bill, the National Origins Act, the purpose of which was to restrict immigrants from ’undesirable’ areas while encouraging ‘good’ immigrants. Annual quotas were set. Japan’s quota: 0. Japanese citizens already in America were no longer permitted to have their wives left at home enter the states.. But such limitations had actually begun in 1790 with the Naturalization Act...not nullified until 1952...which barred Asian Immigrants from rights enjoyed by their European & African counterparts. This meant that the Issei/first generation Asians could never become American citizens.

Racism was always rampant in Hood River and other places in the northwest, but got much worse with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The book continues the story with Masuo being accused of being a ‘Japanese spy’ and going to a separate internment camp than his family. Somehow the nessei/second generation continued the experience of achievement even as the war persisted and many of them were initially in internment camps. Two managed to stay out entirely, attending the Univ of Oregon, though the one girl was not able to attend her own graduation ceremonies.

This story demonstrates what sociology, political science, history, and memoir can do when fused. The emotions, the racism, the immigrant experience, even the growth of Oregon, is all seen here. Well-written, well done. I feel richer for having read it.

[Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really thought about giving this a 1 star. But I do appreciate the Author's intense research. But it was over detailed, long, slow, and quite boring at times. I enjoyed the story of the family and I enjoy learning about WWII.

The whole atmosphere of this book was very negative. Which I think contradicts the attitudes of the Japanese American people, I think they tried to remain positive and hopeful through out their ordeal. I don't agree with how they were treated, but the book was not only a one point of view but a very one sided point of view. I really did not like the Author's sly liberal ideologies that she discreetly slips in here and there. Even bashing Christians in a way, which the Yasui's are. Go figure!

[Kate N · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting, long, somewhat boring about the Japanese internment camps during WW2. I feel bad for these people being subject to racism, yet hindsight is always 20/20.

I gave this book a 2 because I thought it was a poor choice for the Oregon sesquicentennial celebration. Why pick a book that criticizes Oregonians racism to celebrate Oregon? So that made me not enjoy it so much. I guess I shouldn't blame the book for that, so maybe it deserves a 2.5.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and learned so much about the internment camps the American Japanese were confined to following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Yasui family and other families endured hostility, prejudice, yet they contributed to the towns, schools and communities they lived in. They worked hard and succeeded. I live a few miles from the Tule Lake, CA internment camp, and know some Japanese Americans you were born in the camp. This history should be taught in every high school!

[Gina Cummings · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not the typical book I would read, but we chose it for book club and I was SO glad that we did. Incredibly researched, well-written, and compelling (particularly for being non-fiction), I can honestly say that I enjoyed it. Certainly every Oregonian should read it, as well as anyone who is interested in Japanese-American history.

[Kasey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I give up. Made it to the second section and I just can't take it anymore. Life is too short to read a bad book. I hope the governor can forgive my lack of Oregon-ness.

[Leona Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of "Stubborn Twig" by Lauren Kessler

Japanese in America 1887—1945

I do feel that in the book Stubborn Twig author Lauren Kessler does present both sides of the internment issue. She does show that there was a longtime history in America of racism and exclusionary policies towards Asians even before the Japanese came to our country, but she also shows how this racism greatly increased after the Pearl Harbor attack.
Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans in America never really lived without some sort of racial prejudice, whether it was directed at them by neighbors or the government, hostility was something they dealt with almost daily. Actually, Asians in America were never really welcomed.
The first Asians to come to America were the Chinese.
In the 1850’s Chinese came to America to work in the gold mines and on the railroads. In 1868 The Burlingame Treaty was established which showed friendly relations between the US and China and encouraged Chinese immigration, but limited naturalization for the Chinese. Over the years as more and more Chinese came to America white sentiment against them grew and in 1882 the US enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese Exclusion Act caused a problem as the railroads needed laborers and there were no longer any Chinese available to work, so in 1887 Japanese men began to emigrate to the US to work on the railroads incited by hyped up ads filled with amazing opportunities in America promising instant riches and great rewards to those who came to work.
This hyperbole, coupled with the problems many of them were facing in Japan with low wages and difficulties caused by the Meiji government who was taxing farmer’s land and enacting policies that reduced the price of their crops, caused many Japanese men to consider leaving Japan for America when the American railroad agents came recruiting them to work as railroad laborers promising a dollar a day in wages.
By 1907 about 40% of Oregon’s total railroad labor force was made up of Japanese men. These Japanese workers helped build the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Oregon Short Line railroads in Oregon, plus many others in the Columbia River Basin.

Many Japanese Railroad laborers in the US---1900’s
In 1902 Masno Yasui came to America and he worked on the railroads until 1908 when he went to Hood River.
In Hood River, Masno and his brother, Renichi, opened a store. Masno also worked in an apple orchard and a bank as a janitor, eventually he became involved in many other enterprising activities in the community. Masno was always alert, always looking for a new opportunity. Masno spoke and wrote English very well so he was an asset to other Japanese who could not, and quickly became a go between helping them to succeed in their life in America. He found he was also valuable to the white business owners as well, working as a recruiter for their businesses that needed laborers. He soon became a community leader in Hood River. Masno also began buying land for himself and this got him into real estate, and soon he was buying land to resell or lease to other Japanese.
Masno and his fellow Japanese were very industrious and successful, and soon were out performing the white workers in their neighborhoods. This began to be a cause for concern by many on the West Coast. Even though Masno was, for the most part, well liked in his community, there were some who opposed him and all Japanese, and often Masno and his family were reminded that they were not, and never would be, “true Americans”. Government laws and policies were also a reminder. The Naturalization Act of 1790 clearly stated that Asians were barred from 500 jobs and could never become citizens. Yet the Japanese still came to America.
The growing population of Japanese soon became a concern across the country.
The Immigration Act of 1924 limited further Japanese immigration and in 1925 legal restrictions were put into place that barred Japanese from owning land. Surely there was much racial bigotry going on both politically and in the media.

Through all of this Masno and his family continued to work hard and tried to live peacefully in the land they had come to love. Masno spoke to a group of fellow Methodists in 1925 saying: “ We cannot be Americans legally, but we are 100 percent American at heart in every way.”
Then, on December 7, 1941 everything changed!
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caused an even greater anti-Japanese sentiment to grow quickly in America and soon Anti-Japanese paranoia became widespread throughout America. Japanese Americans were feared as a security risk and in February 1942 President Roosevelt signed an executive order for the relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps in the interior of the United States. Even though there was no evidence to convict them of any crimes against the US, still they were held in the camps until 1945, after the end of WW2.

Masuo spent the whole war interned at different camps, charged with being a spy which was never proven. No evidence was ever found to prove that any of the Japanese internees were guilty of espionage. Masuo and his wife never returned to Hood River or his many properties as they were all sold off during his internment to pay loans and taxes. Even after WW2 was over Masuo and all Japanese were treated with fear and prejudice.
Stubborn Twig vividly portrayed the life of a people who lived " ine both versions of America: the light and the shadow. The Country that provides opportunity and then works overtime to prevent some people from gaining access to it."

--Leona J. Atkinson

Sources:
1868 Burlingame Treaty
https://www.us-immigration.com/asian-...
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
https://www.us-immigration.com/asian-...
Japanese men leave Japan--Stubborn Twig Chapter 1 pages 7-8
Japanese Americans in the Columbia River Basin
First Arrivals and Their Labors
http://archive.vancouver.wsu.edu/crbe...
The Immigration Act of 1924-- https://www.us-immigration.com/asian-...
Masno quote: Stubborn Twig Chapter 5 page 68
Japanese-American Internment--http://www.ushistory.org/us/51e.asp
Quote: Lauren Kessler Stubborn Twig Preface page xiv

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book does a good job connecting the dots on how rhetoric and legislation drove assimilation and the homogeneity of Oregon as well as how the anti-Chinese and anti-Japanese sentiment (push to deny citizenship to children of Japanese parents, the cable act and it's amendments counteracting the act aking away citizenship of american women who married non-american men) built to Japanese internment.

I felt like the third generation section was the weakest of the three as it could turn a bit into a laundry list because of how much bigger the family was by then, but the end made me SO emotional because the author also connected how these overarching stories are also about how what happened the generation(s) before us shape us -- whether it's the dad who never talks about his father's imprisonment, the granddaughter who tries to slip into whiteness, the family who never acknowledges how one of them died.

a delight of a book. required reading for folks from Oregon, but excellent for anyone.

a takeaway worth remembering is how the ancestors of white people will colonize a continent and then every generation afterwards will accuse non-white people of trying to do the same. whether it was white people saying Japanese immigrants were attempting to colonize the U.S. or the Great Replacement conspiracy theory now. it's all the same recycled garbage.

[Mya-Ko Pritchard · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Japanese Canadian whose maternal family survived internment (fancy word for sending people to prison camps) I found this book emotionally challenging to read but it was a captivating story and a very believable depiction of a Japanese American family spanning three generations. Sadly the discrimination described in this book seems to resonate even today with the current issues of racism and bigotry. I recommend non asians to read this book in hopes of generating some compassion and understanding, and I also recommend Asian North Americans read this and other literature on the subject for historical education and so as to never forget what can happen right here in the land of the free..

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. I think everyone needs to read this as part of their US History curriculum to understand the racism experienced by Japanese Americans throughout the 20th century.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the haunting title to the last sentence in the book. . . I was captivated. This is family history. Messy, horrific, astonishing, life events and secrets misinterpreted by the following generations, and amazing that the things we DON'T talk about in our nuclear, present, in-real-time lives are the very things our descendants most ask about and about which they'd most like to ask your dead-self.

There is so much I didn't know about the Japanese internment, and the generations prior. The longer this book went on, the more enraged and frustrated I became at the behavior of my fellow citizens generations removed. Even though Hood River is just down the road from where I live, the distance in time and space from my actual ancestors eased my guilt a little. At least it wasn't MY people exactly. Then I started googling. I found the fairgrounds I loved as a child started out as a gathering center for the Japanese in the home town my people did live in.

I recommend this read - if you think it has nothing to do with you, so be it. Read it anyway. Think about this a different way by following this family through their generations of proving their honor, endurance and value to America, in spite of the harassment and unfair treatment dished out by their neighbors. Appalling and shameful to think some of my ancestral voices may have been part of that awful noise.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well researched book about a Japanese American family from Hood River, Oregon, including the WWII period of nternment camps. I found it remarkable frank. It's a biography, not an autobiography, but the author, Lauren Kessler, manages to tell us a great deal particularly about how the third generation that grew up after the war, dealt with being Japanese American.

This was far from a typical immigrant story. The father, Masuo Yasui, arrived in the US in 1903 full of ambition. Although he was banned by law from becoming a citizen, he learned English quickly, became a very successful businessman, a layman advising fellow Japanese immigrants on legal affairs, negotiating business for other Japanese farmers in rural Hood River, and insisting that while his children who were born in the US, learned to speak Japanese and were aware of old world customs, they were American citizens and needed to excel. All this did the family no good after Pearl Harbor. Masui was arrested days after the attack on suspicion of being a spy and his wife and several of his children were sent to relocation camps. It was not until the 1950s that he and his Japanese-born wife were able to become US citizens after a change in the law.

All of his children excelled in some way. One son, Minori, who held a law degree from Michigan, became a crusader for the rights of all American-born nisei and for reparations for all those interned. After a wartime law created a curfew for anyone with a Japanese face (citizen or not), plus Italians or Germans, Min got himself arrested and spent 9 months in solitary in a Multnomah County Oregon jail while the case wound its way through court. The initial ruling by a Portland Judge found that while the government had no right to restrict the movements of citizens, he was stripping Min of his citizenship - partly because he had worked for the Japanese consulate in Chicago. Not until the 1980s was Min exonerated in a precedent setting ruling. this was the same era when the US Congress finally took up the issue of reparations for the internees, a cause Min had championed tirelessly.

It is indeed a cautionary tale being revisited today with immigration laws and fights over locating mosques.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a very similar book several years ago at my dad's behest. Otherwise this one might have impressed me even more. But while I can read dozens of versions of growing-up-Jewish-in-WWII-Europe, these two stories were too much alike: a family history of a Japanese American family in Hood River, detailing generation by generation. The specific story of this family is interesting in itself, which its business triumphs and thread of suicide running through, but the larger picture, down to the American Legion trying to remove the names of Americans of Japanese descent from the war memorial, was the same. More so than much of the horrifying legacy of racism one inherits as a white American, this chapter hits uncomfortably close to home. The climbing and rescue group my father belongs to is Hood River based, and these men were my heros growing up. Now I always wonder--was that their dads and grandfathers who were so quick to turn on their Japanese neighbors? Added to that is the reaction of my own parents. My dad was quite insistent I read the earlier book; I know he struggles with some of the same feelings I have. But my mom, who raised me to not be racist, grumbled when the repartitions happened, and when I first learned about the internment camps in high school, made excuses for them. She grew up in the NW during the war, this was what she was taught as a child. "Japs" were The Enemy, "as far as we knew" they were spies and 5th columnists, and even if not "it was for their own safety" that they were sent away. So if my own mother believed this, how can I say I would have done differently? These are very uncomfortable questions.

[Robin Malcomson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The family and story itself were facinating, but the author put every, last, detail into this very, dry, book.

This is the story of a 16 year old Japanese man who come to America in 1907 to pursue a better life. At that time there was a huge influx of Japanese men coming here to earn money to send back home. They intended to stay a few years and then return home. Masua Yasui on the other hand wanted to make this his permanent home. He learned to read and write English, became a Christian and fully embraced America.
Yasui moved to Hood River, Oregon to open a store in the growing Japanese community. His ingenuity was amazing. As one of the few english speaking Japanese immigrants he became a leader in his community and was able to both see a need and fill it, while also helping his fellow immigrants lead a better life. Yasui became a wealthy man and even during the depression was able to send his 7 children to college.

The bottem fell out when Pearl Harbor was bombed and the Japense became the enemy. Yasui was put in prison for 4 years, while the rest of his family was sent to the internment camps. Yasui's crime was that he was successful.

This book is an important part of both United States history and Oregon history and worth reading. However, be forewarned the author did not make it easy. She did an incredible amount of research and knew her topic inside and out...but it was dry and boring. I have to admit that I ended up skimming through a lot of the last chapters. I almost wish she would have written a fictional story using this family as a base...It would have been more interesting and maybe even able to touch more people.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is absolutely phenomenal. It addresses a very dark chapter in our nation's history, the magnitude of which I have failed to appreciate, until now. Some readers will not appreciate the first few chapters which read more like a documentary than a personal history. These first few chapters establish a fundamentally important historical context, unfortunately getting through them is a bit tedious. But once Kessler gets into the details of the Yasui family's experience and treatment at the hands of the American government and by so many American's I believe most will be gripped by Kessler's narration of a story that deserves to be told to all Americans.

Stubborn Twig is a cautionary tale, at its core it is a warning to all that human nature has an undeniable dark side. In an interview that appears at the end of the book, Homer Yasui (the youngest child of the main character) speaking about what his time in internment taught him explained, "I've learned to be cautious, to not be too trustful of our leaders regardless of their level. I sit back and listen carefully, and I think: Is that true? Is that right? I think that's the main thing I learned during the war." Read through the lens of 2009's turbulent economic and political times Stubborn Twig becomes infinitely more haunting. With history as empirically damning evidence it is apparant that in government bigger is not better but it is far scarier.

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-researched history of a Japanese American family that settled in Hood River, Oregon at the turn of the century and the struggle they endured to carve out a life for themselves in a racist political and social climate. Hard to read at times, Stubborn Twig describes how Mat (Masua) Yansui worked hard to establish himself as a business owner and orchardist, start and raise a family of well-educated children, and become a respected member of the community and how quickly his world came crashing down after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Denounced by the community that had come to heavily rely upon him, and arrested as a Japanese spy, Mat spent many years in federal prison camps while members of his family were interned in Oregon and California. I was amazed that throughout their horrendous ordeals, the Yansui family stayed ever committed to the U.S. and its justice system. Even more amazing is that as a country we have failed to learn from our past mistakes when characterizing people based on race. The blatant attacks on Arab Americans post-September 11th comes to mind. I believe we would all do well to learn more about this grim chapter of our country's history, if not from Stubborn Twig, then elsewhere. My one gripe with Kessler's writing style was that details were repeated again and again and the storyline was a little anachronistic, which is why I gave it only three stars.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

My motivation for reading this book was to get a sense of the extent of resistance by American citizens when Japanese residents and Japanese citizens were interned during WW II. But the story of three generations of one family, the Yasuis, was compelling on its own. Gaining a window into the motivation, culture, expectations and dreams of the Issei, Nisei, and Sansei (first, second, and third generations) was breathtaking, and essential to understand this family's encounter with the promise and danger of American society.

In gaining a better understanding the internment, it was sobering to realize that racism as an underlying force was alive and well against the non-European races all through the first half of the 20th century. So many threads are still repeated today - the broad need for cheap labor tolerated as long as the rights of the aliens were fragile, with no legal redress.

There were heartwarming instances of moral courage shown by churches and individuals in standing up against the uprooting, but striking for their sparseness against the broader silence. I reminds me of MLK Jr's observation a generation later that "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period … was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
The unfortunate conclusion is that the silence has occurred again and again.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must be honest and say this book took me awhile to get through, not out of interest, but as a historical non fiction it is subject me nodding off while reading it because I only have time to read at night, in bed. It brings me back to my college days where I would be reading dry history and literature texts far into the wee hours of the morning.

Please don't let my lack of attentiveness take away from this book and the important story it tells of a American Japanese family living in the Pacific Northwest from the early 1900's and on. Always subject to racism on may levels, the plight of an Asian American was a tough one. While so many other foreign settlers could camouflage themselves easily among native caucasian Americans, especially after getting rid of a telling accent in one generation. A person of Asian decent always looked out of place, always subject to that generations ideas of racial inequality and fears. The tale of the Yausi family was hard to read at times, especially regarding the interment of thousands of Japanese Americans during world war II, not because of legitament crimes, but because of blatant racism and war hysteria.

A wonderful book and an extremely important lesson on local history and racism in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. This should be a standard text in high school history classes.