He was always grateful to an immigration translator named Jack Yasutake, who overlooked the sketchy details of my father’s passport, sprung him from detention, and brought him home to Seattle’s Beacon Hill for dinner and a nice Japanese bath with the Yasutake family. George Abe as a mess hall worker in Block 17 at Heart Mountain concentration camp Wyoming All photos are from Frank Abe unless noted otherwise He was taken off the ship and held for three weeks of interrogation at the Immigration Station and Assay Office here in Seattle. My Kibei-Nisei father, George Abe, was just 13 when he was sent alone from Japan in 1937 to work on a walnut farm near San Jose, California. Let’s start with the beginnings of your 40-year odyssey to reframe the incarceration experience - beginning with your father’s detention in Seattle. He is currently co-editing a new anthology for Penguin Classics on “The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration.” He blogs at. He also wrote and directed a PBS film on the largest organized resistance to incarceration, “Conscience and the Constitution” (2000, 57 min.). He won an American Book Award for “John Okada: The Life and Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy“ (University of Washington Press, 2018). Below, we explore why this book has found such a receptive audience, its connection with the classic novel “No-No Boy” (1957), Frank’s biography of the novel’s author, “John Okada” (2018), and why so many locations in Seattle are part of this history.įrank Abe is a former reporter for KIRO Newsradio and more recently served as communications director for King County Executive Dow Constantine. His latest contribution is a graphic novel, “We Hereby Refuse” (2021), a comic-book format that is anything but a funny book. Interview by Elaine Ikoma Ko, Special to The North American PostĪfter a successful media career, Frank Abe has produced acclaimed literary and film works on resistance to Japanese American incarceration - a living legacy more relevant than ever today. Frank with his two books and documentary film.
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