Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz [Hardcover]

Sandra C. Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 22, 1993

In the spring of 1942, under the guise of "military necessity," the U.S. government evacuated 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast. About 7,000 people from the San Francisco Bay Area--the vast majority of whom were American citizens--were moved to an assembly center at Tanforan Racetrack and then to a concentration camp in Topaz, Utah. Dubbed the "jewel of the desert," the camp remained in operation until October 1945. This compelling book tells the history of Japanese Americans of San Francisco and the Bay Area, and of their experiences of relocation and internment.
Sandra C. Taylor first examines the lives of the Japanese Americans who settled in and around San Francisco near the end of the nineteenth century. As their numbers grew, so, too, did their sense of community. They were a people bound together not only by common values, history, and institutions, but also by their shared status as outsiders. Taylor looks particularly at how Japanese Americans kept their sense of community and self-worth alive in spite of the upheavals of internment.
The author draws on interviews with fifty former Topaz residents, and on the archives of the War Relocation Authority and newspaper reports, to show how relocation and its aftermath shaped the lives of these Japanese Americans. Written at a time when the United States once again regards Japan as a threat, Taylor's study testifies to the ongoing effects of prejudice toward Americans whose face is also the face of "the enemy."

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Utah history professor Taylor explores the impact on the issei and nissei of the San Francisco Bay area of their World War II journey from their homes to their assembly at Tanforan Racetrack and then their internment at the Topaz, Utah, camp. Taylor finds "community" to be a vital concept in her analysis of the "network of associations and institutions that held together a group of people who were set apart from the majority by their ethnicity" before the war and of the effects of internment on that network and on the people who had been part of it. Drawing on the records of the War Relocation Authority, the contemporary press, other studies of those American concentration camps, and nearly 50 oral histories of area Japanese Americans who were interned at Topaz, Jewel of the Desert is a thoughtful, nuanced narrative of the Utah internment. (See also the review of Linda Tamura's The Hood River Issei [in "Books Less Traveled By," this issue] and the review of Lauren Kessler's Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family.) Mary Carroll

About the Author

Sandra C. Taylor is Professor of History at the University of Utah. She is the author of Advocate of Understanding: Sidney L. Gulick and the Search for Peace with Japan (1984) and the co-editor of Japanese Americans: From Relocation to Redress (1986).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 343 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (October 22, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520080041
• ISBN-13: 978-0520080041
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Informative, but not very balanced, March 16, 2006

By 

J. Green (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz (Hardcover)

Having grown up with friends who were the children or grandchildren of internees at Topaz, and neighbors who may have been there as well, I've wanted to read this book for quite a while. Ms. Taylor has managed to pull together a lot of information from sources that are becoming fewer and fewer, and presents a good history of the struggles and hardships Japanese-Americans (especially those from the San Francisco Bay area) faced during WWII. Some interesting pictures are included, but only a few of them were actually taken at Topaz.

While I appreciated the perspective gained from this book, it felt like it was too long and that some of the information was repeated several times. Also, while it does offer bits and pieces of the experience of internees, it offers little by way of more substantial stories of the individuals, failing to really put a face on the people. The last two chapters give summary information on the post-Topaz lives of several dozen internees, but I wish it had been written into the rest of the book, which could have made it more readable and would have eliminated much of the repetition. I also felt that it failed to adequately comment on the perspective and feelings of the Japanese-Americans (other than vague generalities) regarding certain events of the war, such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor and dropping the Atomic bombs on Japan. In that way it comes across as feeling very academic as opposed to personal. My biggest complaint, however, was with the regular and heavy emphasis (particularly in the beginning) on "caucasion racism," as if no other race was capable or guilty of discriminating another. As such it's a rather myopic view of history, but it's still valuable and interesting when taken with the whole, especially in light of current events and the reactions toward Arab-Americans following the September 11 terrorist attacks.