Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II by Daniel James Brown
Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II by Daniel James Brown
From the author of The Boys in the Boat comes a gripping World War II saga of Patriotism and courage -- the story of the special Japanese American army unit that overcame brutal odds in Europe while their families were incarcerated back home, and of a young man who refused to surrender his constitutional rights, even if it meant imprisonment.
Some came from farms and small towns and big cities across the mainland of the United States, and others came from Hawaii. Their parents taught them to embrace both their Japanese heritage and the ways of their American homeland. They faced bigotry, yet they believed in their bright futures as American citizens. But within days of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI was banging on their doors, ransacking their houses, and locking up their fathers. And within months, many of these young men and their families would themselves be living behind barbed wire.
Facing the Mountain is an unforgettable chronicle of wartime America and the battlefields of Europe. Based on Daniel James Brown's extensive interviews with the families of the protagonists as well as deep archival research, it portrays the kaleidoscopic journey of four Japanese American families and their second-generation young men -- the Nisei -- who volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near-impossible in often suicidal missions.
But this more than a war story. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who made their way in America only to be forced to shutter the businesses they had spent decades building, surrender their homes for pennies on the dollar, and submit to life in concentration camps on U.S. soil. Woven throughout is the chronicle of a brave young man, Gordon Hirabayashi, one of a cadre of patriotic resisters who stood up against their government in defense of their own rights.
Whether fighting on battlefields or in courtrooms, there were Americans under unprecedented strain, doing what Americans do best -- striving, resisting, pushing back, rising up, standing on principle, laying down their lives, and enduring.
Viking, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2021
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK.