The Distance Between Our Names

The Untold History of America’s War on Japanese Immigrants
A gripping historical account about the harrowing struggles of Japanese immigrants in the US during the years leading to World War II.

In 1872, a new Japanese governments first diplomatic delegation to the United States was greeted with rapturous welcome in San Francisco. For over ten days of lavish parties, the citys elite admired the emissaries silk robes and noble bearing and began forging what they expected would be a special relationship between ascendant Pacific nations. Three decades later, a young Japanese immigrant disembarked at the very same waterfront to a different reception. I was baptized with horse dung, Nisuke Mitsumori recalled. This was my very first impression of America. Mitsumori arrived in the first angry days of Americas war on Japanese immigrants, a populist convulsion that became one of the nations darkest episodes of ethnic strife. In the ea