NOW Live from the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

Tn his latest book, No Sword to Bury: Japanese Americans in Hawai‘i during World War II, Franklin Odo places the largely untold story of the wartime experience of these young men in the context of the community created by their immigrant families and its relationship to the larger, white-dominated society.

Time:
Thursday, March 4, 2004, 4:00 p.m.
 
Location:
Carmichael Auditorium
National Museum of American History
14th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW

At the heart of the book are vivid oral histories that recall the young men’s service on the home front in the Varsity Victory Volunteers, a non-military group dedicated to public works, as well as in the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team that fought in Europe and the Military Intelligence Service.

Odo shows how their wartime experiences and their post-war success in business and politics contributed to the simplistic view of Japanese Americans as a model minority in Hawai‘i, which glossed over significant differences in their lives and perspectives. No Sword to Bury addresses a critical moment in ethnic identity formation among the first generation of Americans of Japanese descent as well as a history of that community during the war.

Odo is the director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program, as well as a curator at the National Museum of American History.