WE HEREBY REFUSE : Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration

Three stories of Japanese American resistance during wartime paint a fuller picture of a dark chapter in US history.

"Deftly upends the compliant narrative with impeccably documented stories of resistance and rebellion ... Made urgent yet again, the trio’s courageous refusals to accept the U.S.—their!—government’s heinous miscarriage of justice should irrefutably embolden new generations ... Their collective history will resonate with older teens. Also highly recommended for high-school and college classrooms." — Terry Hong, Booklist
“It leaves you simultaneously furious, questioning ideas of loyalty and citizenship … and deeply moved. May all of us learn, and share, these stories." — Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times
Three voices. Three acts of defiance. One mass injustice.
The story of camp as you’ve never seen it before. Japanese Americans complied when evicted from their homes in World War II -- but many refused to submit to imprisonment in American concentration camps without a fight.
In this groundbreaking graphic novel, meet JIM AKUTSU, the inspiration for John Okada’s No-No Boy, who refuses to be drafted from the camp at Minidoka when classified as a non-citizen, an enemy alien; HIROSHI KASHIWAGI, who resists government pressure to sign a loyalty oath at Tule Lake, but yields to family pressure to renounce his U.S. citizenship; and MITSUYE ENDO, a reluctant recruit to a lawsuit contesting her imprisonment, who refuses a chance to leave the camp at Topaz so that her case could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Based upon painstaking research, We Hereby Refuse presents an original vision of America’s past with disturbing links to the American present.