Infamy to Injustice: Liberty's Shame

By John Culea

One of America's darkest moments came with the stroke of President Roosevelt's pen on February 19, 1942. In the aftermath of the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan, FDR's executive order would soon force more than 100,000 Japanese Americans on the Pacific Coast, most of them American-born citizens to abandon their homes and be exiled to internment camps. "Infamy to Injustice: Liberty's Shame" is John Culea's 12th novel (eighth historical) and follows the fictional family of Tom Yoshida, owner of a small grocery store in downtown San Diego. Yoshida, along with his wife, Emi, son, Josh, daughter, Ruth and his father, mother and in laws join a thousand other San Diego Nikkei and are taken by train to Los Angeles and then bused to an assembly center at Santa Anita Racetrack. There they and 18,000 other West Coast Nikkei are incarcerated behind barbed wire in converted horse stalls and make shift barracks guarded by armed soldiers in watchtowers. Despite the internees posing no military threat, Yoshida and his fellow Japanese Americans endure humiliating conditions. Six months later, Yoshida and his family along with other San Diego Nikkei, are taken by train to a barren desert Indian reservation in northwestern Arizona. For three years, under armed guard, they live with 17,000 other Japanese Americans in Poston at one of three hastily built camps. Families are housed in tarpaper barracks with no walled partitions and communal toilets and bathing facilities. Camp food sometimes is barely edible and is shared in large mess halls. Outside conditions range from blistering sun, freezing cold, constant wind, dust, snakes, scorpions and the indignity of being looked upon as the enemy. With determination not to give in, Yoshida and his family try to keep their faith in God and country. Testing their resolve is a government order that drafts interned Japanese American men into the military. The perplexing paradox is never fully resolved when young men are asked to possibly give their lives for a country that is keeping the soldier's family locked up.In the midst of extreme hardships the internees build schools, libraries, an outdoor theater, swimming pools and athletic fields. Coerced into using their agricultural skills, thousands of internees develop agricultural fields for growing much of the camp food and raising livestock for meat and milk. In the bleakest environs, camp artists, including a former Disney animator bring artistic expressions in oil, watercolor and sculptures to boost camp spirits. Several times at Santa Anita and Poston, internees rebel against their captors with work strikes and protests over inhumane treatment. In the story, Josh is chosen for the camp All Star baseball team that plays in a tournament near Phoenix. There he comes in contact with Kenichi Zenimura, acknowledged as the Father of Japanese baseball.Infamy to Injustice introduces the reader to memorable real life figures, including activist George Fujii who was tried for sedition, Fred Korematsu and Mitsuye Endo Tustsumi who were key figures in legal battles relating to Japanese American incarceration and members of the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated unit almost entirely comprised of Japanese Americans, one of the most decorated combat teams in U.S. military history. In March 1945, Yoshida and his family come back to San Diego only to be shocked when he returns to the business he turned over to a friend. His experience is not isolated as the reader sees what other internees face when they return home. Resolved not to give up and trusting God, "Infamy to Injustice" is a story that shows the resiliency of the Japanese American community and their desire not to become victims but to rise above racial prejudice and show the world what true Americans can be.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1981005978
• ISBN13: 9781981005970
• Release Date: May 2018
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 503 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 6.0"