From Our Side of the Fence: Growing Up in America’s Concentration Camps

From Our Side of the FenceBrian Komei Dempster, Editor

“From Our Side of the Fence” contains the first-person accounts of eleven former internees who recall their memories of childhood and youth in American’s concentration camps. This collection traces each author’s personal and psychological journey through war, giving voice to a history that has been silenced. Emerging from a writing workshop taught by the editor, Brian Komei Dempster, and offered through the JCCCNC, this book also offers lesson plans for use by educators and students, and for internees who wish to tell their own stories.

Writers: Florence Dobashi, Kiku Funabiki, Sato Hishizume, Fumi Hayashi, Florence Nakamura, Ruth Okimoto, Wayne Osaki, Toru Saito, Daisy Satoda, Harumi Serata, Michi Tashiro.

Published: 2001
ISBN: 0-9705504-0-5
Paperback: 155 pages

In the aftermath of World War II, more than 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry – roughly two-thirds of whom were American citizens – were released from forced imprisonment in U.S. concentration camps. But released to return where, after being taken from their homes along the West Coast? When they were finally allowed to leave the internment camps, they faced a new challenge: How do you resume a life so interrupted.

Authors

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