From Pearl Harbor to Saigon: Japanese American Soldiers and the Vietnam War (Haymarket) [Hardcover]

Toshio Whelchel (Author)

Book Description

Series: Haymarket | Publication Date: June 1999

"The DI put me and my friend in front of the platoon and said, 'this is what the View Cong looks like, with slanted eyes'." - Raymond Imayama, US Marine Corps, Dong Ha, 1968-69. Among Vietnam veterans, Japanese Americans have remained largely silent about their wartime experiences. Until now. In this ground-breaking book, many of them talk for the first time about their struggle for identity in the US and how this affected their participation in the Vietnam War. Toshio Whelchel interviewed over one hundred veterans in the course of his work, and here he presents the most revealing and moving of their stories. Several of them begin in the relocation camps to which many Japanese American families were posted during and after the Second World War environments which led many young men to accept the military draft without question. Some reveal the various forms of discrimination practised across the different military institutions. All illustrate the profound influence of the war on their lives: how they dealt with routine racism, their growing politicisation and the struggle to reintegrate themselves into American society after the war. "What the American presence in Vietnam was doing was creating a dehumanizing environment for all the Vietnamese. Part of this dehumanization was the paranoia about who the enemy really was. I think that many Marines lost the ability to make that distinction, and that realization started to bother me because I was Asian. If I could be mistaken for a Vietnamese, then I could be a gook. In the eyes of many Americans, I was already a gook!" -- Marcus Miyatomo, US Marine Corps, Danang, 1965-1966

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book offers a unique and vivid account of the collision between America's multiethnic ideal, and the realpolitik of the war. -- James MacTavish, City Pages, 27 October 1999

About the Author

Toshio Whelchel is a first-generation Japanese American living in Los Angeles. He served with the US Marine Corps from 1977 to 1981 and is currently researching an oral history of homeless Vietnam veterans

Product Details

• Hardcover: 203 pages
• Publisher: Verso Books (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859848591
• ISBN-13: 978-1859848593
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #707,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars COVERS AN IGNORED SEGEMENT OF VIETNAM VETERANS, November 17, 1999

By 

STEVE MAZZOTTA ([e-mail]) (CAPE CORAL, FLORIDA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Pearl Harbor to Saigon: Japanese American Soldiers and the Vietnam War (Haymarket) (Hardcover)

THIS BOOK PROVIDES INSIGHT INTO THE VIETNAM WAR AND HOW JAPANESE AMERICAN SOLDIERS HANDLED IT. OVERALL THE STORIES ARE INTERESTING. HOWEVER THE BOOK LIMITS ITS SCOPE TO JAPANESE AMERICANS FROM THE SAME GENERAL AREA OF L.A. WHO SERVED IN THE ARMY AND MARINES. I WISH THE AUTHOR WOULD HAVE EXPANDED HIS SCOPE TO COVER ALL ASIAN AMERICANS FROM ALL THE SERVICE BRANCHES. STILL THE BOOK AT LEAST IS A GOOD START IN AN IGNORED ASPECT OF THE VIETNAM WAR.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He is the greatest writer, April 4, 2000

By 

Mehrbod Mohammadi - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Pearl Harbor to Saigon: Japanese American Soldiers and the Vietnam War (Haymarket) (Hardcover)

He knows what he is talking about, and It seems that american history did not want us to know about these parts of the war, all an all it is a great peace of history missing, and found and told by a great writer in this book...