By Kinji Inomata.
The untold odyssey of Kenji Inomata, a runaway, stowaway youth from 1800's Japan who sailed into New York Harbor in 1899. In 1906, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving on five battleships as a trusted officer's steward to heroic captains and commanders. He also served under Admirals and other high-ranking officers at the Pensacola Naval Air Station. Because of his long and honorable 30-year military service, in 1942, he became the only Japanese male of record in U.S. history to have been Honorably Exempted from incarceration in America's WWII Japanese concentration camps.
It further covers his unprecedented triumph as being among the first two Japanese to be naturalized in 1919, racially-intolerant Pensacola, Florida, as well as his being among the first in U.S. history. Astonishingly, his citizenship was upheld on appeal while the citizenship applications of thousands of other Japanese were denied or their citizenship status revoked. Contrary to alien land laws prohibiting Japanese from owning land, he was also among the first to own property. In 1937, he was also the first Issei employed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. A fascinating history told with many photographs. Paper: 456 pp.
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