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A Japanese-American, Ueno was one of many who were rounded up and put in internment camps during World War II. As a loyal American, he thought the prison camps were unfair, and said so. "He challenged the internment when it happened, and there weren't too many of us who did that," says William Hohri, another internee and the leader of the National Council for Japanese American Redress. "He also had a family with kids, so he was really sticking his neck out during the war." Ueno also spoke out against the corruption of Manzanar camp guards, speaking out when he discovered they were selling sugar on the black market; it was meant for internees. He was arrested for his trouble and spent 3-1/2 years in various jails, part of that time in solitary confinement, even though he was never charged with a crime or given a hearing. After the war, Ueno was given $15 and a one-way train ticket to San Jose, Calif., where he worked raising strawberries and cherries until he retired in 1972. While he felt no amount of money would be enough to repay him for the indignities he suffered, he supported calls for redress to Japanese-Americans who were imprisoned. That finally happened in 1989, when Pres. George HW Bush signed legislation to pay each internee $20,000 for their loss of property and freedom -- which came with an apology. Ueno died December 14 in San Jose from pneumonia. He was 97. From This is True for 12 December 2004 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Jeanne Wakatsuki HoustonJames D. Houston List Price: $6.99 Amazon Price: $6.99 Editorial Review: Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp--with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called the Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation's #1 hit: "Don't Fence Me In." Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of one spirited Japanese-American family's attempt to survive the indignities of forced detention . . . and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United States.The U.S. government's internment of 120,000 Asian Americans in the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 is a thorny era that many Americans have chosen to ignore. Farewell to Manzanar is a factual narrative by Jeanne Toyo Wakatsuki and James D. Houston that follows Jeanne, her family, and 30,000 other Asian Americans along a three-decade-long journey of silent denial and racial degradation.  By: Mary Matsuda Gruenewald List Price: $15.00 Amazon Price: $10.20 Editorial Review: In 1941, Mary Matsuda Gruenewald was a teenage girl who, like other Americans, reacted with horror to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Yet soon she and her family were among 110,000 innocent people imprisoned by the U.S. government because of their Japanese ancestry. In this eloquent memoir, she describes both the day-to-day and the dramatic turning points of this profound injustice: what is was like to face an indefinite sentence in crowded, primitive camps; the struggle for survival and dignity; and the strength gained from learning what she was capable of and could do to sustain her family. It is at once a coming-of-age story with interest for young readers, an engaging narrative on a topic still not widely known, and a timely warning for the present era of terrorism. Complete with period photos, the book also brings readers up to the present, including the author's celebration of the National Japanese American Memorial dedication in 2000.  By: Dorothea Lange List Price: $18.95 Amazon Price: $12.89 Editorial Review: "Unflinchingly illustrates the reality of life during this extraordinary moment in American history."—Dinitia Smith, New York Times Censored by the U.S. Army, Dorothea Lange's unseen photographs are the extraordinary photographic record of the Japanese American internment saga. This indelible work of visual and social history confirms Dorothea Lange's stature as one of the twentieth century's greatest American photographers. Presenting 119 images originally censored by the U.S. Army—the majority of which have never been published—Impounded evokes the horror of a community uprooted in the early 1940s and the stark reality of the internment camps. With poignancy and sage insight, nationally known historians Linda Gordon and Gary Okihiro illuminate the saga of Japanese American internment: from life before Executive Order 9066 to the abrupt roundups and the marginal existence in the bleak, sandswept camps. In the tradition of Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World, Impounded, with the immediacy of its photographs, tells the story of the thousands of lives unalterably shattered by racial hatred brought on by the passions of war. A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2006. 119 photographs.  List Price: $18.95 Amazon Price: $12.89 Editorial Review: The only anthology of its kind, Only What We Could Carry is a collection of literature from the internment experience, including poetry and fiction written and published in the camps, personal diaries, letters, and the haunting recollections of other American citizens who saw what was happening.  By: Michelle Malkin List Price: $27.95 Amazon Price: $18.45 Editorial Review: This diligently documented book shows that neither the internment of ethnic Japanese--not to mention ethnic Germans and Italians--nor the relocation and evacuation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast were the result of war hysteria or race prejudice as historians have taught us. |
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