Friday, November 4, 2011

COLOR OF the SEA by John Hamamura

The protagonist, Sam Hamada, takes us into Japanese-American and Japanese cultures. He sees the world through those two very different cultural filters
The author gives us the underlying cause of the Japanese attack on the U.S.—that the Roosevelt Administration had cut off the supply of oil to Japan. He describes the humbling of the Japanese as employees of white Americans in Hawaii, the prejudice against Japanese immigrants in California, and the humiliation of the Japanese in their defeat by American arms on Okinawa.
I was a boy in grade school during World War II; I remember after the attack on Pearl Harbor smashing a few Japanese-made objects against a wall in Woodside, Queens. We were inspired by the propaganda machine of the time to hate the Japanese. The first time I ever heard anything good said about the Japanese came from my brother Bill, who had been wounded twice as a Marine infantryman during the Battle for Okinawa. I was shocked when he said, shortly after returning home, that Japanese were good soldiers, but poorly led and so inadequately equipped that he wondered at the stupidity of going to war in such circumstances.

A suggestion: My novel, THE PENCIL ARTIST is available as an e-book on Smashwords, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble; as a paperback on Amazon.

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