‘In Search of Hiroshi’ remains relevant today
In 1942, when he was just a boy of about 9, former Baltimore Sun reporter Gene Oishi was among 120,000 other Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated by the U.S. government in detention camps in the wake of the Japanese military attack on Pearl Harbor.
For decades after he was released from the camp in 1945, Oishi searched for a way to process the trauma he and other Japanese Americans endured during World War II. The result would become a memoir, “In Search of Hiroshi.”
Last month, almost four decades since its first release, Los Angeles-based publisher Kaya Press republished the book with a new preface and epilogue. It is a moving study of American racism.
Few books offer such insights into the traumatic effects of the wartime incarceration Japanese Americans. Many of those incarcerated for three years behind barbed wire fences and guard towers did not understand why they, having lived in the United States for most if not all of their lives, were viewed as criminals despite having committed no crime. Oishi’s family was living in a small farming town in California when he was incarcerated.
Oishi provides a gripping account of how his imprisonment left an emotional scar and forced him to come to terms with his identity. In fact, the title of the book comes from Oishi’s search for “Hiroshi,” a fictitious version of himself that he created to help better understand himself and what he lost in camp (Oishi compares his Hiroshi with W.E.B. Dubois’ concept of a double consciousness). In the years that followed the imprisonment, Oishi and his family searched for a new life in California after having lost their farm in Guadalupe. They had spent decades establishing their lives as immigrants but left the incarceration camp starting back at square one.
In addition to offering a rich study into the psychological damage that camp left on Japanese Americans, “In Search of Hiroshi” also examines Oishi’s growth as a writer. The later chapters cover his time working for The Baltimore Sun during the 1960s and 1970s. At the start of his 14 years at The Sun, Oishi reported on city and state political issues. His work led him to cover the arrival of new immigrants, namely the Pakistani community, into a changing city. He was soon promoted to Washington correspondent, where he covered Congress. In 1969, The Sun sent Oishi to Germany as a foreign correspondent. There, he wrote a series on life behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany.
Perhaps the most memorable moment of Oishi’s time with The Sun that is detailed in his memoir is when he covered Maryland Gov. Spiro Agnew’s vice-presidential campaign during the 1968 election. While on the campaign trail, Agnew insultingly referred to Oishi as the “fat jap.” The ensuing press coverage angered Oishi and stirred bitter memories of the anti-Japanese sentiment that was pervasive in California. In 1979, Oishi left The Sun to take a job as Gov. Harry Hughes’ press secretary.
In the 1980s, Oishi testified before a congressional hearing in support of requiring the U.S. government to compensate victims of the camps. The hearings were a cathartic moment for many to open up about their imprisonment after decades of silence. During those years, Oishi wrote several articles for The Sun, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times about his experiences in the camp. “In Search of Hiroshi” was published shortly before then-President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, granting formerly incarcerated Japanese Americans $20,000 and a formal apology.
Elevated by Oishi’s clear writing and beautiful prose, “In Search of Hiroshi” offers a powerful study of one of the darkest chapters in American history and its legacy, and asks readers to consider what it means to be an American — a question as relevant today as it was when the book was first published.