On
August 25th at 5:00 p.m. join us for a conversation with author
Frank Abe and artist Ross Ishikawa, two of the creators behind the graphic
novel We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime
Incarceration.
While Japanese-Americans complied when evicted from their homes in
1942, many refused to submit to imprisonment in American concentration camps
without a fight. Based upon painstaking research, We Hereby
Refuse presents an original vision of America’s past with disturbing
links to the American present. This graphic novel shines a light on the
devastating impacts of mass incarceration based solely on race, reveals the
depth and breadth of the long-suppressed story of camp resistance, and locates
the government’s wartime actions in the continuum of systemic exclusion of
Asian Americans.
Frank Abe wrote and directed the PBS film on the largest organized
resistance to incarceration, Conscience and the Constitution. In
addition, he won an American Book Award for JOHN OKADA: The Life &
Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy and is co-editing a new
anthology of incarceration literature for Penguin Classics. He blogs at Resisters.com.
Ross Ishikawa is a cartoonist and animator living in Seattle. He
is working on a graphic novel about his parents and their coming of age during
World War II. His work is online at rossishikawa.com.
Advance registration for this virtual event on Zoom is required. Register here