Life behind Barbed Wire Book Launch

Community website by MBC/Ernest Abrams. Call 808-739-9797 for advertising/sponsorship#KaimukiHawaii Community website by MBC/Ernest Abrams. Call 808-739-9797 for advertising/sponsorship#KaimukiHawaii

Kaimuki, Hawaii
Event Calendar Item
Life behind Barbed Wire Book Launch
Tweet
Type: Exhibit/Showcase
Date: Saturday - 12/1/2007
Time: 10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Location:
Japanese Cultural
Center of Hawai'i (JCCH)
Community Gallery, First Floor
Phone: (808) 945-7633
Cost: see notes

Event Name: Life behind Barbed Wire Book Launch

Location of the event: Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i (JCCH), first floor Gallery Theatre

Date and Time: Saturday, December 1, 2007, from 10:30 a.m. -- 12 p.m.

Description of event: On the night of December 7, 1941, Yasutaro Soga was one of several hundred Hawai'i Japanese who were detained--marking the beginning of a four-year odyssey that would see this Issei (first-generation Japanese) transported to four different confinement centers. Soga meticulously chronicled his time as an internee and originally published a memoir, Tessaku Seikatsu, in Japanese in 1948. The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i (JCCH) presents this book event that commemorates the printing of the first English language edition of Soga's Life behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai'i Issei, published by the University of Hawai'i Press and translated by JCCH Resource Center volunteer Kihei Hirai, with the help of other JCCH volunteers.

Soga was the publisher of the Nippu Jiji newspaper, one of the two most widely read Japanese language dailies in Hawai'i prior to World War II. With the trained eye of a veteran journalist, Soga--who was 68 years old at the start of his internment--writes in unflinching detail of the travails, human foibles and boredom of his life behind barbed wire. Many of those who were interned were among the leaders of Hawai'i's Japanese immigrant community, and Soga's account includes many specific references to these fellow internees over the course of their ordeal.

"Little is written about the internment of Japanese in Hawai'i, and this book greatly adds to that small body of work," said Brian Niiya, JCCH Resource Center Director. "Perhaps more significantly, this account from a distinctly Issei perspective provides a vivid contrast to the many existing Nisei-centered accounts. Soga's book will no doubt challenge many of our beliefs and assumptions about the inner life of the interned Japanese Americans."

Cost/Entry Fee: Free Admission. Book cost is $21 for JCCH members; $25 for non-members (tax-included).

Public contact information: Phone: (808) 945-7633, fax: (808) 944-1123. Web address: www.jcch.com.

Name of sponsoring organization: The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, strives to share the history, heritage and culture of the evolving Japanese American experience in Hawai'i. The JCCH features a Community and Historical Gallery, Resource Center, Kenshikan martial arts dojo, Seik�an Japanese teahouse and Gift Shop.

Questions? Ready for an appointment?

Like Our Facebook

Kaimuki, Hawaii Event Calendar Item

Kaimuki, Hawaii
Event Calendar Item