Podcast Library
This podcast series was created with Past Forward, a nonprofit organization that creates media designed to amplify community voices by providing a platform to share stories about civic engagement and cultural enrichment. You can explore this series and others here.
Frank Abe
In this episode we connect with Frank Abe, co-author of the graphic novel, We Hereby Refuse. Frank discusses how, despite having family who lived through the Japanese American incarceration, he had never learned about the revolt and resistance of many Japanese Americans until he was in college. The book tells the story of three individuals whose entire families were incarcerated following Executive Order 9066, and how they each resisted in their own way against the inhumane treatment of Japanese Americans.
LISTEN:https://pastforward.org/blogs/public-podcasting/frank-abe
Kiku Hughes
In this episode we connect with Kiku Hughes, author and illustrator for the graphic novel, Displacement. The book follows a young person, disheartened by the direction humanity is heading, and the anger and vitriol she sees in the news in our present day. Kiku shares how she came into this medium for sharing stories, and how the story of the incarceration camps have always been with her growing up, even though she had never met her grandmother who lived through the ordeal.
LISTEN: https://pastforward.org/blogs/public-podcasting/kiku-hughes
Maggie Tokuada-Hall and Yas Imamura
In this episode we connect with Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Yas Imamura, the author and illustrator of Love in the Library. The children's book explores the beginning of the the relationship of Maggie's grandparents as they were incarcerated in Minidoka camp during WW II.They also discuss the roller coaster experience of receiving a licensing offer from Scholastic Books, contingent on Maggie editing her Author Statement to remove the word racism and allegories to our current racist policies in the US. The request was in response to the uptick of book banning in some conservative areas.
LISTEN: https://pastforward.org/blogs/public-podcasting/maggie-tokuda-hall-and-yas-imamura
Stephanie Hinnershitz
In this episode we connect with Stephanie Hinnershitz, author of the book Japanese American Incarceration: The Camps and Coerced Labor During World War II. We discuss the work Japanese Americans did while incarcerated following Executive Order 9066.
LISTEN: https://pastforward.org/blogs/public-podcasting/stephanie-hinnershitz
Greg Robinson
In this episode we connect with Greg Robinson, author of the book Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road. As a professor of history at University of Quebec in Montreal, Greg shares about Canada's decision to incarcerate their Japanese citizens following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We also discuss his book Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road and examine Miné's life as a young artist, working with Diego Rivera, before being incarcerated at Tanforan and Topaz following Executive Order 9066.
LISTEN: https://pastforward.org/blogs/public-podcasting/greg-robinson
Sylvia Chong
In this episode we connect with Sylvia Chong, Professor of American Studies and Asian Pacific American Studies at the University of Virginia. We discuss the concept of Yellow Peril, or the fear and mistrust of Asian Americans from when they first settled in America in the mid 1800s to the incidents of hate in the wake of Covid19 pandemic. We explore how Yellow Peril was propagated first through print media, and then through film and television, all the way up to our current news cycle and social media.
LISTEN: https://pastforward.org/blogs/public-podcasting/sylvia-chong
Gordon H. Chang
In this episode we connect with Gordon H. Chang Professor of History at Stanford University. We discuss his discover of a comic strip from 1943 that ran for eight weeks, depicting Superman in a Japanese Incarceration Camp and discovering subversive Japanese wanting to wreak havoc on America.
LISTEN: https://pastforward.org/blogs/public-podcasting/gordon-h-chang
Janice Munemitsu
In this episode we connect with Janice Munemitsu, author of the book The Kindness of Color. Janice shares the story of her families first arrival in California and how her father became an 8 year old land owner, and how it was through kindness and luck that her family was able to find someone to lease and manage their land after they were incarcerated following Executive Order 9066.
LISTEN: https://pastforward.org/blogs/public-podcasting/janice-munemitsu
Nori Uyematsu
In this episode we connect with Nori Uyematsu to discuss his childhood on a farm in California in the 1930s and how everything changed for him and his family after Executive Order 9066. His family lost everything they had worked to build as the were relocated to an Assembly Center and then to Heart Mountain Wyoming along with thousands of other Japanese Americans from the West Coast.
