Inclusion: How Hawai‘i Protected Japanese Americans from Mass Internment, Transformed Itself, and Changed America

Review Inclusion is of singular worldwide public and academic importance. It lifts up Hawai‘i’s interethnic history to show how small groups with a common goal and working cooperatively can result in wondrous social change. -- Tetsuden Kashima, author of Judgment without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment during World War II and Buddhism in America: The Social Organization of an Ethnic Religious InstitutionTom Coffman has broken new ground on the tragic history of Japanese American internment. Now we know the Hawai‘i chapter is a crucial part of the story―and Coffman tells it with authority and verve. -- Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography, CUNY Graduate CenterTom Coffman has produced a definitive account of Americans of Japanese ancestry in Hawai‘i during World War II. His book shows how local Japanese figures such as Shigeo Yoshida joined forces with a diverse group of allies, both inside and outside official circles, to mobilize Japanese communities in support of the war and the public in support of Japanese communities. They averted the tragedy of mass confinement, such as that on the US mainland, and their success made Hawai‘i a model for inclusion of ethnic Japanese in mainstream society. Packed with fascinating details, Tom Coffman’s work enlarges our understanding of this key era in American history. -- Greg Robinson, Université du Québec à MontréalBrilliant and meticulous, Tom Coffman reveals the people and forces that spared territorial Hawai‘i’s Japanese populace from mass removal after Pearl Harbor and enabled its sons to serve America gallantly in World War II. The heroes of this true story―Ching, Yoshida, Burns, Shivers, and many more―were inspired by an idealism and aloha that the world can learn from today. Based on groundbreaking research, Coffman’s compelling account gives them recognition that they richly deserve. -- Mark Matsunaga, Hawai‘i journalist and World War II historianInclusion will reframe our understanding of World War II in significant ways. It is unlikely that a work of this breadth and magnitude will come around again anytime soon, especially as many of the historical actors interviewed by the author have already passed away. I know of no other that attempts to treat as many separate threads of historiography in a single account. This is not strictly military or cultural history, but a careful blend of a multitude of viewpoints―including a chapter on contemporaneous sociological accounts. -- Corey M. Johnson, research associate, Stanford University and affiliate faculty, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo[Inclusion] is a fascinating study of the Council for Interracial Unity, a now largely forgotten race relations group located in the then-Territory of Hawai‘i in the years surrounding World War II, and especially two of its outstanding members, the Chinese American social worker Hung Wai Ching and the Japanese American school principal Shigeo Yoshida. . . . Coffman is a dedicated researcher and skilled narrator who mixes biography and larger analysis gracefully. . . . The book has a real contribution to make to our knowledge of (Japanese) American history and the special set of forces in Hawai‘i that preserved its interracial harmony through the depths of war. -- Greg Robinson ― Nichi Bei WeeklyTom Coffman, a political journalist and leading historian of modern Hawaii, shines new light on this crucial period [before and during WWII] in his engaging book. . . . Coffman focuses heavily on three men ― social activist Hung Wai Ching, schoolteacher Shigeo Yoshida and attorney Charles Hemenway ― who saw by the late 1930s that war with Japan was inevitable. . . . The details of this period are so little known that Coffman [is] able to deftly create suspense in the storytelling even though the outcome is known. -- David Shapiro ― Honolulu Star-Advertiser Product Description Following December 7, 1941, the United States government in