GAMAN, The Story of a Japanese American Prisoner in a War that Never Ended: a Memoir
By Kenichi Yabusaki.
Kenichi K. Yabusaki (Ken) was born a prisoner of war in an American concentration camp in Minidoka, Idaho. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent primarily on the West Coast were forced into ten main concentration camps across the continental US with no due process.
The demoralizing effects of that horror in American history remained with those who survived, Ken tells how it affected the lives of his grandparents, his parents, his sister, and himself. Ken tells how he fought the misguided racism in “Yellow Peril” using the Japanese practice of gaman (silently enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity) and shö ga nai (referring to something that can’t be helped, it’s out of one’s control)—powerful words filled with meaning, perseverance, and resilience—as his sword and shield.
Paper: 176 pp.
