Nisei Naysayer: The Memoir of Militant Japanese American Journalist Jimmie Omura

420 Pages·2018·8.572 MB·English

by  James Matsumoto Omura

Nisei Naysayer
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 
A series edited by Gordon H. Chang
The increasing size and diversity of the Asian American population, its
growing significance in American society and culture, and the expanded
appreciation, both popular and scholarly, of the importance of Asian
Americans in the country’s present and past—all these developments have
converged to stimulate wide interest in scholarly work on topics related
to the Asian American experience. The general recognition of the pivotal
role that race and ethnicity have played in American life, and in relations
between the United States and other countries, has also fostered the height-
ened attention.
Although Asian Americans were a subject of serious inquiry in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they were subsequently ignored
by the mainstream scholarly community for several decades. In recent
years, however, this neglect has ended, with an increasing number of writ-
ers examining a good many aspects of Asian American life and culture.
Moreover, many students of American society are recognizing that the study
of issues related to Asian America speak to, and may be essential for, many
current discussions on the part of the informed public and various scholarly
communities.
The Stanford series on Asian America seeks to address these interests.
The series will include works from the humanities and social sciences,
including history, anthropology, political science, American studies, law,
literary criticism, sociology, and interdisciplinary and policy studies.
A full list of titles in the Asian America series can be found online at
www.sup.org/asianamerica
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Nisei Naysayer
Th Mo of Mlt t
Jp  A
Joult J Ou
James Matsumoto Omura
Edited by Arthur A. Hansen
Stfo d Uv ty P
Stfo d, Clfo
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2018 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Nichi Bei Foundation and
the Japanese American National Library for generously supporting the
publication of this volume.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the
prior written permission of Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Omura, James Matsumoto, 1912–1994, author. | Hansen, Arthur A.,
editor, writer of introduction.
Title: Nisei naysayer : the memoir of militant Japanese American journalist
Jimmie Omura / James Matsumoto Omura ; edited by Arthur A. Hansen.
Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2018. |
Series: Asian America | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017057765 (print) | LCCN 2018020518 (ebook) | ISBN
9781503606128 (electronic) | ISBN 9781503604957 | ISBN
9781503604957 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503606111 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Omura, James Matsumoto, 1912-1994. | Japanese American
journalists—United States—Biography. | Journalists—United
States—Biography. | Japanese Americans—Evacuation and relocation,
1942-1945.
Classification: LCC PN4874.O66 (ebook) | LCC PN4874.O66 A3 2018 (print) | DDC
070.92 [B] —dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017057765
Typeset by Classic Typography in 11/14 Adobe Garamond
Cover photo: “Jimmie Omura as editor of San Francisco’s New World
Daily News, 1934-35.” Omura Papers, Green Library, Stanford University
Cover design: Rob Ehle
To my wife, Karen, my two sons, Gregg and Wayne, and my
grandsons, Brian and Travis,
and
To those Americans of Japanese ancestry whose constitutional and
human rights were unjustly sacrificed during World War II on the
altar of national security
—James Matsumoto Omura
To Debra Gold Hansen, my beloved wife and esteemed colleague,
and in fond memory of my parents, Haakon and Anna, and my
brother, Roy,
and
To those Japanese Americans who, like James Omura, resisted
oppression before, during, and after World War II
—Arthur A. Hansen
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To refuse to run with the herd is generally harder than it looks. To
break with the most powerful among that herd requires unusual
depth of character and clarity of mind. But it is a path we should
all strive for if we are to preserve the right to think, speak, and act
independently, heeding the dictates not of the state or fashionable
thought but of our own consciences. In most places and most of
the time, liberty is not a product of military action. Rather, it is
something alive that grows or diminishes every day, in how we
think and communicate, how we treat each other in our public
discourse, in what we value and reward as a society, and how we
do that.
—tho . k, churchill and orwell:
the fight for freedom