The Poet and the Silk Girl

A profound story of love that prevails in the face of injustice and the indignity of false imprisonment, that also takes the form of family history. Features numerous letters/facsimiles between the author's parents: 20 love letters during their courtship, her mother's diary entries throughout her incarceration,182 letters exchanged between them while held in separate prison camps, and haiku poems written by her father during his incarceration. Also includes photographs which, along with the many letters, provides a rare glimpse into the day to day lived experience as it was actually taking place in these camps, unlike currently relied upon classroom texts of retrospective memoirs or fictionalized narratives about the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans. Reveals the little-known story of prison camp dissidents, stigmatized as “disloyal” who renounce their birthright as Americans to protest the violation of their civil rights. Revises the government imposed narrative that the assumed “crisis of loyalty” of thousands of Americans of Japanese descent was, in fact, a “crisis of faith” in their own government. Scholars and academics will discover rare and remarkable primary documentation provided through prison camp newsletters, FBI reports, and surreptitiously taken photos of violence against prisoners featured in this book. Subsequent generations of Japanese Americans throughout the US who are seeking to understand the experiences of family members who were incarcerated and yet never spoke of the experience, will find context and content in this book that has previously never been fully known or understood. This book is a more complete and detailed account of the author's film From a Silk Cocoon (2004), which won an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, San Francisco/Northern California Chapter, a Best Director Award from the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, and a Grand Festival Award from the Berkeley Video & Film Festival.