Redress: Book Talk with Author John Tateishi

Saturday, June 27 at 3pm
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Author John Tateishi discusses his book, Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations, in conversation with Patricia Wakida, editor of Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience.

Books are available for order at www.asiabookcenter.com. Choose ship to home or pick up in store at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. Berkeley, CA 94704.

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About the Book:
This is the true story of the Japanese American Citizens League’s fight for an official government apology and compensation for the imprisonment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. Author John Tateishi, himself the leader of the JACL Redress Committee for many years, is first to admit that the task was herculean in scale. The campaign depended on a unified effort but began with an acutely divided community: for many, the shame of “camp” was so deep that they could not even speak of it; money was a taboo subject; the question of the value of liberty was insulting.
Besides internal discord, the American public was largely unaware that there had been concentration camps on US soil, and Tateishi knew that concessions from Congress would only come with mass education about the government’s civil rights violations. Beyond the backroom politicking and verbal fisticuffs that make this book a swashbuckling read, Redress is the story of a community reckoning with what it means to be both culturally Japanese and American citizens; how to restore honor; and what duty it has to protect such harms from happening again. This book has powerful implications as the idea of reparations shapes our national conversation.

About the Speakers:
John Tateishi, born in Los Angeles, was incarcerated from ages three to six at Manzanar, one of America’s ten World War II concentration camps. He studied English Lit at UC Berkeley and attended UC Davis for graduate studies. He played important roles in leading the campaign for Japanese American redress, and as the JACL director, used the lessons of the campaign to help ensure that the rights of this nation’s Arab and Muslim communities were protected after 9/11.

Patricia Miye Wakida is a fourth generation Japanese American artist, writer, and community historian. For the past fifteen years, she has worked with numerous cultural institutions such as the Japanese American National Museum, Discover Nikkei, the Oakland Museum of California, and the Densho Encyclopedia project.

This event is sponsored by the Ethnic Studies Library, UCB, Eastwind Books of Berkeley, Asian Pacific American Student Development, UCB