SW 3200: Cultural Diversity: Japanese Americans

Representing work by some of the leading scholars in the field, this volume presents important topics in the religious environment of contemporary Japan by surveying exciting trends, religious change and innovation, and the interactivity of religion with market and global forces.

NOBUYUKI MATSUHISA was born in Saitama, Japan, and trained as a sushi chef in Tokyo. After running restaurants in Peru, Argentina and Alaska, Nobu opened his first restaurant, Matsuhisa, in Beverly Hills in 1987.

Imagine: hard-working Japanese-American community members forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to concentration camps simply because of their ancestry. This happened not all that long ago on a forested island near Seattle, Washington.

Among the ten Japanese Internment that imprisoned 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, Tule Lake Segregation Center was the site for over 18,000 "disloyals." Fifty years later, seven former internees discuss their past and how they came to terms with their identity, politically and socially, both during and after their camp experience. The viewer is challenged to reconsider what loyalty and citizenship really mean in a country deeply rooted in a history of racism

Honor and Sacrifice tells the complex story of a Japanese immigrant family ripped apart by WWII. The Matsumoto family included five sons; two who fought for the Americans and three who fought for the Japanese. The eldest, Hiroshi (Roy), became a hero, fighting against the Japanese with Merrill's Marauders, an American guerrilla unit in Burma.