Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp

Memoirist Slater (The Good Shufu) offers a poignant account of a family facing a series of increasingly impossible conundrums during WWII. In March 1942, “Civilian Exclusion order No. 3” was issued, the latest in a series of orders for the internment of Japanese American civilians. Los Angeles labor organizer Elaine Buchman Yoneda faced a dilemma: her Japanese American husband Karl had already been removed to Manzanar, a camp at the foot of the Sierra Nevadas, while Elaine, who was Jewish and white, remained the caretaker of their three-year-old son Tommy—now listed among those ordered for removal. Elaine, told she was not allowed to accompany her toddler, drew on her rambunctious years of experience organizing for the American Communist Party to force her way onto the transport. She was reunited with her husband at Manzanar, where the couple became mediators between the disaffected internees and authoritarian camp officials. Karl was eventually allowed to enlist to fight overseas. Dissent remained high in the camp, bursting into a riot in December 1942, during which Elaine and Tommy faced death threats over the couple’s perceived collaborationism. After the war, the family struggled to rebuild their lives as none of their seized property was returned. This cinematic and propulsive family saga casts a riveting spotlight on an ignominious episode in U.S. history. (July)