Claire Sato, a retired school librarian and LIS alumnus, and Violet Harada, LIS professor emeritus, have edited A Resilient Spirit: The Voice of Hawaii’s Internees. The book includes excerpts from various men and women, who were incarcerated at internment camps and detention centers in Hawaii. Claire and Violet spent three years combing through archival records at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii’s Tokioka Heritage Resource Center to select moving and poignant vignettes from the internees’ oral histories, letters, writings, and poetry.
Claire says her motivation for taking on this project was, “I wanted to have these stories told so that others would know that once there was a group of people who were unjustly treated, and they rose above it with dignity, strength and resilience.” Violet added, “It gave us the chance to send the message that history will continue to repeat itself unless we tell the real stories and stand up to the racism and bigotry wherever it exists.”
The book was published by JCCH and is available at the JCCH Gift Shop. Order forms are available at https://www.jcch.com/gift-shop