September 3, 2014
New to the encyclopedia this month are articles on writers and artists, Nisei soldiers during World War II, and a little known INS detention camp, among other topics.
Patricia Wakida, one of the encyclopedia’s associate editors, has been interested in Japanese American writers and artists—and is one herself—and will be contributing many articles on this area in the weeks to come. New this month are her pieces on Los Angeles based Nisei sisters Louise and Julia Suski, the former a writer and editor and first English language editor of the Rafu Shimpo newspaper, the latter a well-known artist and musician, as well as Albert Saijo, whose exposure to Zen Buddhist at Heart Mountain eventually led him to become a key figure in the Beat Movement of the 1950s.
Abbie Grubb is contributing a number of articles on movies and exhibitions that tell the story of the wartime incarceration as well as pieces on Japanese Americans in the military during World War II. This month, she contributes pieces on the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion and the 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion. Laura W. Ng has contributed an article on the East Boston Detention Station, where a handful of enemy aliens were held during World War II. I have also added pieces on pioneering Issei lawyer Takuji Yamashita; the Chandler Committee, one of several federal or state legislative bodies to investigate administration of the concentration camps during the war; wartime senator and governor of the state of Washington Monrad C. Wallgren; and the JACL’s early postwar lobbying arm, the Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).