Monday, January 24, 2022

Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II

Book: Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II
Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : References

Basic Information:

Author: Daniel James Brown

Edition: ePub on Libby from the San Francisco Public Library

Publisher: Viking

ISBN: 0525557407 (ISBN13: 9780525557401)

Start Date: January 1, 2022

Read Date: January 24, 2022

560 pages

Genre: History, World War II, Osher

Language Warning: Low

Rated Overall: 3½ out of 5


History: 4 out of 5


Synopsis:

Brown goes through how Japanese-Americans were treated before, during and after World War II. He does this by following several Japanese-Americans, mostly those who are part of the 442nd. But he also talks about the internment camps-what are termed concentration camps. Brown does differentiate how the American internment camps and the German concentration camps as being several quantum different.


He particularly follows the young males who go into the 442nd from being green recruits through being the most wounded and decorated unit in the US Army. He shows how they earned their slogan Go For Broke by taking several German fortifications which were thought untakable. Whole companies were decimated.


But then there was also the undercurrent of questions 27 and 28 which presented Japanese-Americans with as “Have you stopped beating your wife?” type of question. Many Japanese-Americans felt they could not answer these questions. Also there was the sense they were being deprived of their AMerican rights as citizens. Gordon Hirabayashi took this further, protesting and refusing to sign off on these questions, going all the way to the Supreme Court.


At war’s end, the 442nd was highly decorated. But when they returned to the West Coast, they were still seen as Japanese and not accepted, except in a few places.

 
 
Cast of Characters:
  • Gordon Hirabayashi
  • William Nakamura
  • Fred Shiosaki
  • Judy Niizawa
  • Kats Miho
  • Fumiye Miho
  • Sus Ito was
  • George Oiye
  • Solly Ganor
  • Rudy Tokiwa
  • Colonel Charles Wilbur Pence
  • Chaplain Eugene West
  • Floyd Schmoe.
  • Special Agent Francis Manion
  • Katsuichi Miho
  • Paul Horiuchi
  • Alfred A Purcell-Lieutenant Colonel and commander of the 442nd.
  • John E Dalquist-General, commanded suicide mission for the 442nd against Germans in order to rescue a battalion

Expectations:

Recommendation: OSHER Book Group


Thoughts:

Current breakdown of US Army units-I do not know if this was in use during World War II. Also there may be a different alignment in other services.


Unit

Notes

Army Region

3 or more field armies, a million soldiers with a general

Army Group

4-5 field armies, 4000 soldiers with a genera

Field Army

4 or more divisions, 90,000 soldiers with a general

Corps

2-5 divisions, about 45 soldiers, with a lieutenant general

Division

3-4 brigades, about 15,000 soldiers with a major general

Brigade

2-3 battalions about 5, 000 soldiers with a colonel in charge

Battalion

4-6 companies, around 1,000 soldiers with a lieutenant colonel

Company

3-4 platoons, around 200 soldiers with a Captain

Platoon

2-3 squads, around 36 soldiers with a lieutenant

Squad

10 soldiers with a Sargent. Can be refereed to as a section

Team

4 soldiers, usually with an officer assigned


Forward

Talks about the Densho group which talked about making known how Japanese-Americans were treated and responded during World War II. Daniel Brown was part of that group which understood and talked about these people.


Author’s Note

In April 1946, in the aftermath of World War II, George Orwell wrote, “Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. We see this today with Trump and Putin as being the leading people. But I am not so sure that some of the US Democratic politicians are too far behind. This book is talking about events from 80 years ago which also fit that pattern. So it is something to remember today.


To tell a truthful story, one must use truthful language. He is beginning this up in how he told this story.


Prologue

Brown attends a local gathering of 442nd veterans in a restaurant. This book is about a few of the Issei-those who immigrated from Japan-and the Nisei-those born in the United States.



Part One - Shock

One

Brown starts off writing about Kats Miho. He was on Oahu during the attack on Pearl Harbor.. Talks about the attack. In 1941, nearly a third of Hawai‘i’s residents were of entirely Japanese ancestry. One of the people who gets mentioned throughout the book is Daniel Inouye-but he never gets a main part in the book. Probably because later he was a US Senator. I think Brown wanted to highlight lesser known people.


Two

More on Kats Miho and his family. Brown also relays the history of Maui. This includes Baldwin and Alexander families who were descendents from missionaries. But had taken the notion that it was their divine right to own the island as well as the people on it. When there were too few Hawaiians to work the fields, they imported others, including Japanese to work there.


Three

Next on the biography list is Kisaburo and Tori Shiosaki and their son Fred. They ran a laundry in Spokane, catering to the workers of the area.


Also talked about Fumiye Miho, Kats sister who was working as a teacher in Japan.


Then reactions across America. Also local in Hawaii. And then there was the round up of Issei men, including Kats’ father. Early in 1941, FDR has proposed that every Japanese citizen or non-citizen on the Island of Oahu who meets these Japanese ships [arriving in Hawai‘i] or has any connection with their officers or men should be secretly but definitely identified and his or her name placed on a special list of those who would be the first to be placed in a concentration camp in the event of trouble. This list was used to round up the Issei.


Four

Pearl Harbor’s effect on Fred’s family. Background to his family. Then the author goes to Kats Miho’s situation in Hawaii. Talks about the A-B-C lists of the FBI. Describes conditions at the early detention centers which housed the Issei: With almost no changes of clothes available, they shivered in wet clothes through long damp nights on the cots. Fred felt isolated at school, except for a few friends. In Hawaii the Hawaiian Territorial Guard was ¾ Japanese-American. They were summoned and discharged-the commander was apologetic because he knew where their loyalties were.


Brown goes on and talks about how politicians spoke of the war. Politicians who had long known how racial hatred could fuel campaigns and advance legislative or personal agendas seized a ripe opportunity


Interesting Those who hailed from one prefecture in Japan often looked down on those from another. Prejudice seems to be universal. The only question is who looks down on you and who do you look down on.



Part Two - Exile

Five

The scene now changes to the Salinas Valley where the family of Rudy Tokiwa worked in the fields. Rudy was sent to Japan to learn the Japanese way. There he found that 70% of all of the Japanese economy went to the military. Life in Japan had become gray and gloomy, and people dressed to match the mood. This led to the national mood darkened under the strain of the oil embargo, the inevitability of war against America was on everyone’s lips. In 1939, Rudy came back to America.


When Pearl Harbor was attacked, those of Japanese descent knew that things were going to be different. Up and down the West Coast in particular, they fired up oil stoves and woodstoves or kindled fires in fireplaces. Anything which might be said to be unAmerican was destroyed. He experienced the hatred which people had towards the Japanese. But he thought since he was an American citizen, he would be safe because of what he learned at Salinas High, he’d learned a little about the Constitution in his history class, and American citizens had rights.


The question was, where was the loyalty of the Issei and Nisei? A debate began to rage behind the scenes, both about the facts (whether there had been any disloyalty) and about policy (how to safeguard against it in the future).


Executive Order 9066,

executive order, 9102


Six

Rudy’s family in Salinas were pretty much Americanized with roots well set. But the Executive Orders now disrupted their plans and took everything away.Talks about how Asains were treated throughout the West. An example from 1880: On September 2, roughly 150 white miners carrying rifles surrounded the Chinese district of Rock Springs, Wyoming. Having been there for one afternoon, this surprised me as the towns people are proud that they sheltered Butch Cassidy. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed. This was followed in 1913 in California by the Alien Land Act. June 1919, Senator James Phelan of California testified before Congress, seething about what he considered the unfair advantage Japanese immigrants gained by working too hard or being too ingenious. The Issei now realized that the future lay entirely in the hopes and dreams they nourished for their American children.


Rudy’s family got some help from a pair of brothers who they helped set up their farm. But the family was sent to an internment camp. Learning to make due in a camp. Things were not pleasant: strange food, open pit mass toilets, sleeping in horse stables with manure smell still there.


Kealakekua-I thought this name sounded familiar. It is on the Big Island, close to Captain Cook. The reference was to a person who was interned, but from here.


Seven

Tells Gordon Hirabayashi story of passive resistance to the executive orders. His family was of the Mukyokai movement in Japan. Gordon found similar thinking with the Quakers and they readily accepted him as well. Gordon soon realized that the situation was exacting a terrible psychological toll. Anxiety, angst, depression, and fear stalked whole communities. Special Agent Francis Manion was the one who did the work of bringing the case against Gordon. See a Washington Law Review article from Nov 1984 called Justice, War, and the Japanese-American Evacuation and Internment. It has much of the interaction between Manion and Gordon.


Switched over to Fred’s family. Then to Rudy’s-Everybody agreed it just wasn’t fair what was happening to Rudy’s family.. Over time Rudy was not visible to his classmates.


Eight

Brown talks about how Americans were coming together because of the recognition of an evil given face and form by soulless men who wielded racial hatred, demagoguery, blind nationalism, and brute violence as the means by which to seize and hold power. In the face of this overwhelming darkness, Americans, like their overseas allies, held firm to the belief that they stood on the moral high ground, that the values they lived by—liberty, democracy, and the simple notion that all men were created equal. But in this case, not Japanese. The spirit was such that Everyone was chipping in. Everyone could do something to help. Everyone was part of something larger and much more important than themselves. It is hard to have this spirit if you are a young Japanese person who is being sent to an internment camp. … each and every day, they confronted fresh reminders, in the starkest terms imaginable, that many of their countrymen saw them not as Americans but as enemies, enemies of all that America stood for and all that they themselves believed in. And there didn’t seem to be much they could do about it.


One of the places they were sent was the Colorado River Relocation Center which was close to a reservation. The reservation’s governing Tribal Council had objected to the camp’s construction on the grounds that they did not want to be a part of an injustice.


Rudy had been a cook, so he volunteered to be one of the cooks for the camp. He became the cook for the camp.


Gordon was in prison, awaiting his trial. He became a favorite and leader of the inmates. His family ended up going to Pinedale Assembly Center near Fresno, California and then on to Tule Lake.


Talks about Kats and Fred.


Mostly, though, people spent their scant earnings in the camps’ co-ops. Set up and organized originally by Quaker and Mennonite volunteers, the nonprofit co-ops were owned and run by those incarcerated in the camps. The camps were a place where you could be idle, but few were. They set up activities both to benefit the war effort. Also … they’d formed an elaborate network of sports teams, complete with leagues and divisions based on block and camp assignments for all the major sports—baseball, football, basketball, volleyball. Talked about camp life.


Gordon’s trial. He was convicted.



Part Three - Kotonks and Buddhaheads

Nine

Christmas 1942 was depressing in the camps. But behind the scenes, beginning in early January 1943, secret memos began circulating among the War Department, the Selective Service, Army Intelligence, and the FBI about the possibility of allowing Nisei men to volunteer for a segregated, all–Japanese American combat team in the U.S. Army. There was a lot of back and forth on this. Finally in February 1942, Roosevelt said: Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry. A good American is one who is loyal to this country and our creed of liberty and democracy. Every loyal American should be given the opportunity to serve this country.


Both Kats and his brother wanted to serve. It was decided that they both would go.


It was announced on Feb 9th. In the Potson Camp, Nobody was quite sure what to make of the sudden change in policy or what to do about it, but one thing was immediately clear: the initial reaction in the camps was very different from what it had been in Hawai‘i. Seen from behind barbed wire, the invitation to fight and die for America struck many as less than tempting. For some, it seemed downright insulting.


A big sticking point was that everybody, including those not going, needed to sign a questionnaire, including a special loyalty oath which other Americans were not required to sign. This was requiring them to renounce a loyalty to Japan which they never had. Did Italians have to sign that as well? Germans? … The actual part of this was question 27 which required them to serve wherever they were asked and 28 to swear unqualified allegiance to the US and renounce their allegiance to the emperor. This was part of Gordon’s resistance as well.


Rudy’s father was a bit apprehensive. He had fought in WW I and the government never let me become a citizen. Would it not honor things now? He told Rudy that you believe this is what you must do, I’m glad that you are man enough to do what you think is right.


Fred also decided to join, which did not sit well with the family. … in many Japanese American families, the father was not just the head of the household; he was the decider, the final arbiter of all controversies, the last word on anything and everything that required an opinion or choice.


All over the country, Japanese families were telling their sons: Be a good soldier. Come home alive if you can. But whatever you do, don’t bring shame on yourself or your country or the family


Things were turning around in Europe, but Hitler was not defeated and then there was Japan as well. They would be training in the South, particularly in Mississippi.


Ten

The 442nd regiment was now created and Kats, Rudy, Fred and others were now part of it. Brown describes Hattiesburg, Mississippi and its surrounding as not being friendly to anything non-white.


This is where the mainland and Hawaiian culture came to a head: Kotonks and Buddhaheads. The Buddaheads spoke a certain type of pigeon English amongst themselves, almost ununderstandable to those outside their islands. The mainlanders and the Hawaiians couldn’t have a conversation without it devolving into a fight. This led to name calling: The islanders started calling the mainlanders “kotonks” for the hollow sound a coconut makes when you hit…. The kotonks started referring to the Hawaiians as Buddhaheads, though no one on either side was exactly sure what it meant. Also the attitude was there: mainlanders usually came from an internment camp; Islanders were more care-free. But something which the Islanders did do, when there was a fight, they all fought you.


The 442nd had a dedicated artillery group: the 552nd. Kats was assigned the 552nd. Also he fit in with the Buddhaheads, but also had a bit more interaction having gone to University. So he also fit in with the Kotonk. Kats became friends with Georgle Oiye from Montana.


There was also the 100th Army regiment who had been in the Army a year and a half more than the 442nd.


Talked a bit more about Gordon.


Eleven

The 442nd was learning to be soldiers.Nicknames started to gather. But they were not working as a team. As things continued to spiral downward, the senior officer corps at Shelby began to wonder whether the Japanese American boys would ever come together as an effective fighting unit and whether the whole thing had been a mistake. The question loomed: Should they just dissolve the regiment?


Most of the officers were white-those not usually medical or chaplains. Respect was earned. One of their officers was showing them how to use a bayonet. He slipped and stabbed his own foot, clean through. He told them to get back to practice and then hobbled off. He seemed like someone you might want to follow into battle.


Colonel Charles Wilbur Pence was the commander of the 442nd. Everything was “we” with him and he meant it. He figured out how to stage a party with females in attendance. the 442nd’s now official motto, derived from the shouts of boys shooting dice—“Go for Broke”.


The 100th shipped out.


Gordon goes to jail-in Arizona. But he has to provide his own transportation.


Kats brother died in an auto accident.


Twelve

Talks about the two Japanese-American chaplains which were attached to the unit. Kats was able to relate to him after his brother’s death.


It was the chaplains who figured out how to bridge the gap between the mainland and island soldiers. The mainland soldiers could not look forward to; the islanders could not believe there was anything like that. The Buddhaheads visited a camp and were shocked and then understood.


Talks about Gordon in the Arizona prison and the impact he made.


In April 1944, the order came to get ready to ship out. Talks about the cohesion when some white service members tried to cut out the 442nd from dancing with white women. The other soldiers got creamed. Then talked about the trip across the Atlantic.



Part Four - A Thousand Stitches

Thirteen

More on Gordon. He is released after his 90 day sentence and heads back to Seattle to continue to confront the different treatment of Americans based upon race. His stance caused others now to consider questions 27 and 28.


Trip across the Atlantic.


Chaplain Eugene West while a chaplain to the 442nd, he did not think the Japanese Americans were really fighting for America. He said The Americans of Japanese ancestry are in the war to better their own future. America is for Anglo-Saxons and it is best for the AJAs to return to Japan. He became a pariah.


When the 442nd landed, they found things desperate for the Italian people. Part of the 442nd landed at Anzio, one of the more ferocious battles in WW II.


Fourteen

The first artillery shell of the war by the 442nd was fired. The ground troops of the 442nd were making their first contact as well on June 26, 1944. Also the first time under fire. Communications broke down. Confusion reigned. Scared would just get in the way of staying alive. Rudy was sent as a runner to headquarters to give status and get orders.


On the way back to headquarters, Rudy found a German with a machine gun. He killed him. It wasn’t just a soldier he’d killed; it was a father. Back in basic training, they had told him never to go through the personal effects of enemy dead.


Two of the battalions had been pinned down until the 100th came through an opening. This allowed for the Germans to be ambushed. In trying to extend their advantage, they ran into more Germans when they realized that it was not just war, but someone was trying to kill each and every one individually. After just a day and a half in combat, they already knew how fragile their own hold on sanity had suddenly become.


The safest time to advance was at night. But they could go into a minefield, unknowingly. When they could, they worked with Italian partisans who guided them around potential hazards.


Fifteen

Independence Day 1944 came. Rome was now in Allied hands. Back in American concentration camps, not all was quiet. … two and a half years into the war, Poston was a deeply divided community, fractured over questions of loyalty and identity, conflicted over issues of duty and principle.


Questions 27 and 28 were still a thorn in the side. A riot/protest over conditions at Tule Lake camp broke out. A murder happened where a guard provoked and killed a teenager. He was acquitted.


The 442nd were advancing. Description of an intense fight to take Hill 140. They get a new commanding officer-Purcell. He looked sort of dorky. But Rudy quickly found out he could teach people a few things. Rudy captured eight Germans for information. They also went through villages doing street fighting.


The chaplains had the task of identifying and retrieving bodies of their soldiers for proper disposition of them. When they could, they would also try to do something with the dead German soldiers.


Sixteen

Letters and telegrams were starting to arrive with condolences for people killed in action. Everybody back in the United States was waiting.


Gordon was waiting to be arrested again. In the meantime, he got married.


Talked about a spy mission Rudy went on,


Then the soldier’s leave came to be able to relax in Italy. Brown notes that after the leave, these men were not the same as when they arrived-they had seen death close up and now were hardened. They were bound together like nothing else could be. it was also holy and sacrosanct, and it would last for the rest of their years.


The artillery now had a new tactic called time on target. This was when not only one or a couple big guns fired at the same time, but when a large number of guns fired to have the shells explode on the same target at the same time. Very effective and devastating.


Talked about deaths from mines and booby traps as well as enemy gunfire. The 442nd was moved out of Italy into southern France. They had achieved a good reputation as fighters.



Part Five - To The Gates of Hell

Seventeen

In France. Even chaplains got wounded. Gordon’s wife post’s bail for him. The 442nd traveled north into France. The battle for Vosges was now on.This was just 30 miles west of Germany, so the Germans were fighting for their home territory.


The fighting was brutal. Rudy wonderees “when I get out of this, if I do, whether I’ll be a human being.” That is the thing with any war. You get used to killing, and why? Even in a war like World War II, killing does something to the soul.


After fighting for so long, the 442nd was exhausted. They got to go back and rest for a while. But then hardly 48 hours later, another order came up-rescue a regiment which had been surrounded.


Eighteen

442nd learned to hate General Dalquist because of him willing to sacrifice Japanese-American blood to accomplish a goal which could have been accomplished in another manner-the saving of the 141st Infantry Regiment. . The 141st had been ambushed on top of a hill.


Description of the battle both from the 141st and from the 442nd side. Pence was badly wounded. Both Pence and Pursall were running into an irrational General Dalquist-who was ordering that the 141st be relieved. Dalquist, Rudy, Pursall and Dalquist’s aide go to the front lines. The aide is killed. Dalquist issues an suicidal order-charge the hill. Pursall leads the charge-his men follow him. Out of a hundred men who went up the hill, only two dozen remained. No commissioned officers were on the battlefield for a couple of the companies-they were either dead or wounded. Finally, the Germans retreated and the 141st was relieved.


Rudy shoots a German who was laying down. The comment was that Rudy wasn’t in the mood for entertaining scruples.. See my note in the previous chapter-but I do understand.


Even the chaplains were being troubled by all the killing. They felt their answers were hollow. Did God only care for causes? And another thought from a chaplain: the more he pondered the question, the more he recognized the fragility of his own faith.


Nineteen

Even in full dress uniforms, people would not wait on Japanese-Americans, even though they were obviously wounded by battle.


Dalquist had not realized how badly depleted the 442nd was by rescuing the 141st. He expected a whole regiment to attend a ceremony. When less than 30 people showed up, he was upset. The person now in charge of the 442nd explained-this is all you have left out of about 350-360 soldiers.


In the fall of 1944, after Roosevelt’s election, the exclusion zone was lifted.


Soldiers from the 442nd were now moved to the Italy-France border to block any thoughts the Germans may have had in going to France that way-there really was none, it just gave the 442nd time to recuperate. Relaxing.


Twenty

Telling the story of a Jew in a Nazi concentration camp. Why does Brown put this story in his book? Then talked about Gordon in prison.Brown goes on and talks about various other trials of Japanese-American resistors in various places. One of these communities was the foggy logging town of Eureka, in the redwoods of far Northern California, where there was a long and often vicious history of anti-Asian sentiment. Most were railroad jobs. But in Eureka, there was a Judge Louis E Goodman who when examined the situations and that these Americans had been stripped of their rights, but then expected to serve found that they were innocent. Instead, they were returned to Tule Lake-another form of prison. See the Jewish News web page for a bit more detail.


There was an incident in Hood River, Oregon where the local Foreign Legion post put up a monument for those who served in World War Two. Sixteen names were blacked out-the Japanese-Americans. The message-we do not want them in our town. Other incidents happened where Japanese-American families were harassed or driven out of their communities when they returned from their camps.


Even in the luxury of the French Riviera, there was a sense of duty. More even than when he [Kats] had entered the army, he was committed to a personal sense of ethics, to doing what had to be done for the greater good


The 442nd’s artillery was sent north. The infantry was now told to get ready and strip all identifying insignia from their uniforms and were loaded onto landing craft.


TwentyOne

Gordon in prison. The 442nd’s artillery, apart from the infantry, goes into Germany.


The 442nd’s mission was different-they went back into Italy and was going to attack the Gothic Line. They were going to surprise the Germans-they were coming incognito. It was a steep climb up mountains held by the Germans. Monte Folgorito was one of them, the main one.They took the mountain, something which no other unit had been able to do in the seven months since the 442nd left Italy,


TwentyTwo

The fact our men can be acclaimed as good fighters is because they are believers in what they do. They have an understanding heart, a purpose. One of the chaplains in a letter.


The artillery moved deep in Germany with Patton’s and Patch’s troops. Even though the war was ending, there was still fighting and marches and great effort. Talked about Daniel Inouye leading his men to attack. There was still very bloody Fred realizing he was no longer the same person as he was at the start of the war-he was keeping his morals, but it was a struggle.


TwentyThree

Jewish prisoners at Dachau. The artillery was going through what has been called the Corridor of Death. When they came into the death camps, the Americans were sickened.



Part Six - Home

TwentyFour

Brown looks at the various scenes when the Germans surrendered. The reaction of the 442nd was subdued-tears of relief and gratitude.. A feeling of wanting to go home and also the realization that the war in the Pacific still raged.


But the feeling along the West Coast was we do not want the Japanese back. On the war front, there was a huge humanitarian crsis of feeding and caring for those who had been displaced, in labor and concentration camps and those who had lived under Nazi rule.


There was one Japanese-American who Brown followed in Japan. There is a description of what happened when the atomic bombs went off.


When the soldiers returned home, there was a mixture of emotions. It was hard picking up.


Epilogue

This concluding chapter deals with where they are now and what the reception was like when they got back home. It was mostly with scorn being Japanese-American rather than looking at the accompaniments of the 442nd. As American as they were, in some ways and to varying degrees, they were also proudly Japanese.


There was lobbying to have reparations to those who were sent to the concentration camps in America. It passed.


Rarely has a nation been so well served by a people it has so ill served



Evaluation:

Pearl Harbor changed a lot of the relationships those of Japanese ancestry had, both in Hawaii and on the West Coast. Brown works through the background of life as a Japanese person before Pearl Harbor and then the resentments they faced during World War II. His emphasis throughout nthe book is how the Japanese and Japanese-Americans were treated and how they responded, with an emphasis on those in the 442nd. He uses the term concentration camps where we generally call them internment camps.


In the midst of this hatred towards those of Japanese ancestry, the 442nd was born. Brown goes through several of the young men’s lives. He takes them through boot camp and training. Then how they fought courageously, particularly in Italy and France, going for broke. He also looks at Gordon Hirabayashi who decided he could not in good conscience acquiesce to the government's demands to renounce who he was.


Brown goes in depth and writes a good story. While ranges back and forth between the internment camps, the fighting the 442nd does, and the legal fights of Hirabayashi, he does it in a way which does not lose the reader. On the other hand, the writing is not about an average telling of history. It is a worthwhile read to understand more of the trials which those of Japanese ancestry faced. But you are left to draw your own conclusions about anything which we might be facing today.


 
Notes from my book group:

From OSHER-Jan 28, 2022

Many of the plantation owners were descended from the Baldwin and Alexander missionary families. Baldwin was a doctor and led the fight against some of the diseases brought by whites to the Islands. But as the families settled in, they became affluent. What do you think about the plantation owners? Do you think they were giving a path to a better life? Their own personal gain over their workers? Do you think this was part of their religious teaching or do you think the families deviated from their Christian teachings?


Do racial, ethnic, religious or cultural backgrounds influence an individual’s sympathies towards other nations? If so, what is a rational and constitutional way to make sure the sympathies do not lead to the betrayal of the country where the person now resides?


Rudy felt that as an American citizen, he had certain unalienable rights. He found out that those could be easily stripped. What rights were taken away from the Japanese-Americans who were citizens? What rights do you think are least secure for you? How could they be taken away? How can they be protected?


One aspect of what happened to Rudy was that he turned “invisible” to his friends and high school classmates. How does being invisible affect the perception people have of those who are invisible? Describe how it might make a person seem less human.


Roosevelt said Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry. What convinced Roosevelt to place those of Japanese descent into internment camps? Would you have if yo were in his shoes? If not, how would you have kept America safe from spying and espionage when it was unknown how involved those were on American soil? How would you have dealt with those who clamored for more harsher actions?


Does the needs of the United States ever allow for the suppression of Constitutional rights? If so, under what circumstances? How far can this suppression go?


As a young man in an internment camp, there was a good deal of discussion about should they join the US Armed Forces. What were the issues? Describe the feelings these men had. Would you have volunteered in those circumstances? Do you think because of their treatment they should have been drafted?


One point of dissension in the 442nd was that those from Hawaii could not believe that there were internment camps in America. And even if there were, they could not be very bad-this is America. How did this misunderstanding get resolved? Would you have resolved it that way? How do you think this misunderstanding started? How can misunderstandings be resolved before they go out of control?


When the 442nd was sent to rescue The Lost Battalion, General Dalquist ordered the men to charge up the hill and in doing so, two companies were almost completely wiped out. Do you think the General had a grasp of reality? Do you think if the 442nd was white he would have issued that order?


As you read through the sections where the 442nd fought, how does Brown portray that fighting in war tends to dehumanize your opponent? What does it do to those who do the fighting?


Where is God in all of this carnage?


Why does Brown tell about Solly and the Nazi concentration? Draw the comparisons between the Nazi and American camps. Do you think Brown is fair in labeling the American camps as concentration camps? Why does he use that term with American camps?


Why did Judge Goodman of Eureka not convict the Japanese-American resisters while others did?


How do you want your life to change because you read this book?



Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

Why the title of Facing the Mountain?

Does this story work as a history?

Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?

Which character was the most convincing? Least?

Which character did you identify with?

Which one did you dislike?

Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

In what context was religion talked about in this book?

Was there anybody you would consider religious?

How did they show it?

Was the book overtly religious?

How did it affect the book's story?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

Describe the culture talked about in the book.

How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?

How did this book affect your view of the world?

Of how God is viewed?

What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?

Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

What was memorable?

 

New Words:
  • gaman-a Japanese term of Zen Buddhist origin which means "enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity"
  • Ofuro (furo)- a Japanese bath and/or bathroom. Specifically it is a type of bath which originated as a short, steep-sided wooden bathtub. Baths of this type are found all over Japan in houses, apartments and traditional Japanese inns
  • giri-a Japanese value roughly corresponding to "duty", "obligation", or even "burden of obligation" in English. It is defined as "to serve one's superiors with a self-sacrificing devotion"
  • haole-a person who is not a native Hawaiian, especially a white person
  • Issei-a Japanese-language term used by ethnic Japanese in countries in North America and South America to specify the Japanese people who were the first generation to immigrate there.
  • Nisei- a person born in the US or Canada whose parents were immigrants from Japan.
Book References:
  • The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
  • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  • De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
  • Clarence Darrow for the Defense by Irving Stone
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
  • Light One Candle by Solly Ganor

Good Quotes:
  • First Line: In April 1946, in the aftermath of World War II, George Orwell wrote, “Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.
  • Last Line:Rarely has a nation been so well served by a people it has so ill served
  • To tell a truthful story, one must use truthful language.. Chp Author’s Note
  • Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
  • Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry. A good American is one who is loyal to this country and our creed of liberty and democracy. Every loyal American should be given the opportunity to serve this country. Franklin D. Roosevelt, February 1, 1943

References:
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