Title: Facing the Mountain
Am Inspiring Story of Japanese/American
Portraits in World War II
A close friend of mine since 3rd grade sent me this book, as a follow on to another book he previously sent, The Boys in the Boat. Same author for both, Daniel James Brown. I’ve become a fan of the author, and his style of books, basically story telling of a significant significant event.
The book itself is about the effects of the Pearl Harbor bombing by the Japanese in 1941 on American /Japanese citizens, and their living ancestors, the Issei(Japanese immigrants not allowed to become US citizens) from Japan. Pretty much focuses on all of them between Pearl Harbor and the end of WW II. While I was generally familiar with the U.S. concentration camps of all the Japanese in the U.S. back then, this book goes beyond the camps to showcase how their teenagers became soldiers and fought valiantly in WWII, many of their trials and tribulations, successes and then even life post war.
The author brings to life the discrimination existing against the Japanese people pre war, including the first immigrants not being able to become citizens or own property. As well as the ” Jap” slang used against them, similar to the “N” slang used against blacks to demonize them and deprive them of what America had to offer at the time. We can probably not even imagine what the Pearl Harbor bombing by the Japanese did to further incite racism and attacks against them while having nothing to do with that horrifies attack. Guess its not too dissimilar to how American’s felt about Arabs here in the U. S. post 9/11.
Despite the general U.S. policy against these Japanese American’s, reaction to Pearl Harbor only made things worse. Detained, arrested, treated like prisoners without due process from the phobia associated with Pearl Harbor, they were taken to camps not too dissimilar to the German camps for Jews, short the killing piece for the most part. Treated poorly, starved, robbed of personal possessions, and no rights or advocates to help, including President Roosevelts wife and her efforts. Within the camp environment of many individual camps, the 16-18 year old’s rose up to defend their honor and their families reputation to serve in the U.S. Army and help fight in Europe or the Pacific. They went through bootcamp, became known as the 442nd Regiment, andapproximately 4000 were shipped to Italy as a Japanese/American soldier unit.
The book details three years of fights and battles with many may examples of their life experiences, before during and after the war. Also details the many losses of human life, and ultimately how they became the most recognized unit based on battle success and medal count of any U.S. military group in WW II. Quite unbelievable. The human emotion of fighting for your country while that same country holds your family in concentration camps is often addressed in the book as well.
The end of the book’s epilogue does a nice job summarizing what happened to many of the Issei that survived war, their family, career and so forth. As a reader, can’t help but deeply feel the pain, suffering and perseverance they all had to endure throughout their journey. It took until the 1980’s before our politicians and government made amends, addressed the laws targeting their rights, and made U.S. citizenship available to all Japanese going forward.
Usually I write how a book might help once I’m released, but this time I’ll focus on my time being incarcerated. My biggest takeaway is contrasting their confinement conditions to ours today, the discrimination they endured, and the brutal fighting in the trenches their sons as soldiers went through. While many died in camp or in the war zone, their perseverance, fighting for their beliefs in the Constitution resulted in so much good for so many, including the future of their entire Japanese to become equal under U.S. law. To me that’s not only inspiring but helps keep things today in context for this journey and when time for release come’s whenever that might be!BJ
