Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto

Overview

Meticulously researched and beautifully written, the true story of a Japanese American family that found itself on opposite sides during World War II—an epic tale of family, separation, divided loyalties, love, reconciliation, loss, and redemption—and a riveting chronicle of U.S.–Japan relations and the Japanese experience in America

After their father’s death, Harry, Frank, and Pierce Fukuhara—all born and raised in the Pacific Northwest—moved to Hiroshima, their mother’s ancestral home. Eager to go back to America, Harry returned in the late 1930s. Then came Pearl Harbor. Harry was sent to an internment camp until a call came for Japanese translators and he dutifully volunteered to serve his country. Back in Hiroshima, his brothers Frank and Pierce became soldiers in the Japanese Imperial Army.

As the war raged on, Harry, one of the finest bilingual interpreters in the United States Army, island-hopped across the Pacific, moving ever closer to the enemy—and to his younger brothers. But before the Fukuharas would have to face each other in battle, the U.S. detonated the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, gravely injuring tens of thousands of civilians, including members of their family.

Alternating between the American and Japanese perspectives, Midnight in Broad Daylight captures the uncertainty and intensity of those charged with the fighting as well as the deteriorating home front of Hiroshima—as never told before in English—and provides a fresh look at the dropping of the first atomic bomb. Intimate and evocative, it is an indelible portrait of a resilient family, a scathing examination of racism and xenophobia, an homage to the tremendous Japanese American contribution to the American war effort, and an invaluable addition to the historical record of this extraordinary time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062351951
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/27/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	453
Sales rank:	415,261
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Pamela Rotner Sakamoto is an  American historian. Fluent in Japanese, she lived in Kyoto and Tokyo for seventeen years. She works as an expert consultant on Japan-related projects for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and has taught in the University of Hawaii system. She is on the faculty at Punahou School in Honolulu.

Table of Contents

Author's Note xiii

Prologue: Shockwave 1

Part I American Born, Bicultural Bred

1 At Home in Auburn 9

2 Hiroshima Sojourn 24

3 Growing Pains 35

4 The Great Depression 45

5 Ivory Bones and Leaden Ashes 54

Part II Adrift in Two Countries

6 Land of the Rising Sun 67

7 A Sorrowful Homecoming 90

8 Hazing in Hiroshima 102

9 Panic In Los Angeles 119

10 Silence from Glendale to Hiroshima 137

Part III The War on the Home Fronts

11 Incarcerated in California 151

12 The Empire's Home Front 162

13 Arizona Sandstorms 169

14 A Balmy Winter in Minnesota 183

15 Mary's North Star 193

16 Rations and Spies in Hiroshima 201

Part IV The War in the Pacific Theater

17 Suspicious from the Start 211

18 To the Front with a Typewriter 219

19 No Season for Cherry Blossoms 227

20 Taking New Guinea 231

21 Pierce's Stay of Execution 238

Part V Dooms Day Overture

22 A Stunning Encounter in Sarmi 243

23 Glacial Change in the Jungle 255

24 The "Red Paper" Draft 262

25 Extremes in the Philippines 272

26 Brothers at War 282

27 The Atomic Bomb 296

Part VI The Aftermath

28 Bittersweet Reunion 315

29 A Troubling Letter 333

30 Peace and Redemption 341

Epilogue: At Ease in Honolulu 355

Acknowledgments 359

Glossary 365

Notes 373

Selected Bibliography 413

Index 423

Editorial Reviews

…engrossing…Deeply reported and researched, Sakamoto's book provides a fascinating close-up of the travails of wartime life in an increasingly fascistic Japan…Sakamoto tells her tale as a straight historical narrative, with little authorial intervention. This omniscient approach, and the vast scope of the subject, lends her tale a novelistic sweep…Midnight in Broad Daylight not only tells one family's remarkable story but also makes an important contribution to our knowledge of the Japanese-American experience in World War II, on both sides of the ocean and the hyphen.

The New York Times Book Review - Gary Kamiya

10/12/2015
In this sweeping portrait, historian Sakamoto explores family dynamics as she profiles U.S. Army Col. Harry Fukuhara (1920–2015), an eminent linguist whose brother served in Hirohito’s army during WWII. Sakamoto draws on extensive interviews as well as a long acquaintance with her subject and his family to infuse the narrative with great poignancy. Opening in Seattle with the 1929 stock market crash, Sakamoto’s account introduces Harry, his brothers Frank and Pierce, and their sister, Mary, whose world crashed with the 1933 death of their father. Desperate, their mother whisks them to her hometown of Hiroshima, where the children suffer culture shock. Unable to assimilate, Harry returns to the U.S. in 1938, a year and a half after Mary does, but both of them end up in an Arizona internment camp in 1942. When Army recruiters scouted the camp looking for translators, Harry passed the test, embarking on a career in U.S. military intelligence. Despite their efforts to avoid battle, his brothers in Japan were drafted in a 1945 last-ditch “mass mobilization.” Frank’s experiences as a teenager in the Japanese Army provide the counterpoint to Harry’s wartime reminiscences. Sakamoto presents a gripping story of colorful individuals, though her novelistic tone often undermines the gravity of the story she relates. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Deeply reported and researched… Midnight in Broad Daylight” not only tells one family’s remarkable story but also makes an important contribution to our knowledge of the Japanese-American experience in World War II, on both sides of the ocean and the hyphen. — New York Times Book Review

[S]ublime prose and prodigious research…“Midnight in Broad Daylight” is as riveting and moving a book as has ever been written about World War II, made all the more compelling by the blending of American and Japanese perspectives. — Seattle Times

“An intimately detailed look at the agony of a Japanese American family struggling to maintain American loyalty amid discrimination and war. . . . A richly textured narrative history. . . . A beautifully rendered work wrought with enormous care and sense of compassionate dignity.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[O]ne of the most wrenching, inspirational-and until now unknown-true epics of World War II….luminous, magisterial…[Sakamoto] has helped shape and set the standard for a vital and necessary new genre: transpacific literature. Her readers will want more.” — Ron Powers, Pulitizer Prize winner and author of Mark Twain: A Life

“Riveting in its alternating American and Japanese perspectives, and a fresh look at the dropping of the atom bomb over Hiroshima, this story is inspirational as well as educational. A great addition to World War II literature.” — Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, coauthor of Farewell to Manzanar

“This deeply researched and elegantly written history is a rare human drama that spans the Japanese-American experience as few, if any, books have done…. a cultural document that immerses the reader…” — USA Today

“Midnight in Broad Daylight is a deeply moving, well-written work that ranks among the better accounts of the injuries inflicted in wartime on civilian and ethnic populations. Students of war crimes and crimes against humanity are sure to notice this book.” — Herbert Bix, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

From the Publisher

This deeply researched and elegantly written history is a rare human drama that spans the Japanese-American experience as few, if any, books have done…. a cultural document that immerses the reader…

USA Today

[S]ublime prose and prodigious research…“Midnight in Broad Daylight” is as riveting and moving a book as has ever been written about World War II, made all the more compelling by the blending of American and Japanese perspectives.

Seattle Times

Riveting in its alternating American and Japanese perspectives, and a fresh look at the dropping of the atom bomb over Hiroshima, this story is inspirational as well as educational. A great addition to World War II literature.

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

Deeply reported and researched… Midnight in Broad Daylight” not only tells one family’s remarkable story but also makes an important contribution to our knowledge of the Japanese-American experience in World War II, on both sides of the ocean and the hyphen.

New York Times Book Review

[O]ne of the most wrenching, inspirational-and until now unknown-true epics of World War II….luminous, magisterial…[Sakamoto] has helped shape and set the standard for a vital and necessary new genre: transpacific literature. Her readers will want more.

Ron Powers

Midnight in Broad Daylight is a deeply moving, well-written work that ranks among the better accounts of the injuries inflicted in wartime on civilian and ethnic populations. Students of war crimes and crimes against humanity are sure to notice this book.

Herbert Bix

This deeply researched and elegantly written history is a rare human drama that spans the Japanese-American experience as few, if any, books have done…. a cultural document that immerses the reader…

USA Today

★ 11/01/2015
This is an epic chronicle of the Fukuharas, a Japanese family living in the Pacific Northwest in the early 20th century who moved to their mother's ancestral home in Hiroshima during the Great Depression, only to have two of the children return to the United States, while others were conscripted in military service. Sakamoto's scrupulously researched story employs material gathered through interviews with surviving Fukuhara family members to show how the war in the Pacific affected both the Japanese and Japanese Americans. Chapters alternate between events in the United States and Japan as the author follows three of the brothers, two in the Japanese Imperial Army and one in the U.S. Army. Before the brothers meet on the battlefield in the Philippines, where all three are stationed, an atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. This history is evocative of Junichiro Tanizaki's The Makioka Sister in scope but provides a richer look at the human costs of war. VERDICT Sakamoto succeeds in telling a new, compelling, and essential World War II narrative by presenting a story about family caught on both sides of history.—John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston

Library Journal

The Fukuhara family was intimately affected by the events of WWII, both in the Pacific Northwest and in Hiroshima, Japan. With a deliberate yet delicate tone, narrator Emily Woo Zeller traces the paths of various family members back and forth to Japan for reasons of education and family, then to internment camps following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the brothers' service in the Japanese and the United States Armies, and, ultimately, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Woo Zeller's narration is adequate, though lacking the kind of the energy that would have made this fascinating story even more engaging in the audio format. Uniquely positioned with roots on both sides of the conflict, the Fukuhara family makes history come alive in a story that focuses on real individuals who lived through the dramatic events. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2016 - AudioFile

★ 2015-09-23
An intimately detailed look at the agony of a Japanese-American family struggling to maintain American loyalty amid discrimination and war. Historian and teacher Sakamoto weaves a richly textured narrative history of the Fukuhara family, who moved from Hiroshima to Auburn, Washington, in 1926. However, financial issues after the death of the father forced them to move back in 1933. Somewhat typically at the time, the family was made up of the first-generation immigrants—businessman Katsuji and homemaker Kinu—and their five American-born children. The two eldest, Mary and Victor, were sent back to Hiroshima to help their aunt in her lucrative candy-making business, then subsequently returned to the U.S. as teenagers, culturally confused kibei whose English had been mostly forgotten. Harry, the spirited middle son and the one most thoroughly Americanized, was not happy about the move back to Japan, though his five-year stay allowed him the language immersion that would be invaluable during World War II, when, interned with his sister Mary at the Gila River Relocation Center, Arizona, in the fall of 1942, he was plucked by the Army for intelligence translation in the Pacific theater. The Japanese-speaking author offers fascinating research into the lives of these conflicted immigrants. At the time, Japanese-American youth who served in the Japanese army automatically relinquished their American citizenship, which Harry, by moving back to the U.S. at age 18, refused to do, unlike his other brothers. The specter of the atomic bomb hovers ominously over the narrative, and while most of the Hiroshima family managed to survive, the physical and psychological scarring were gruesome and lasting. American soldier Harry's resolution to return to Japan in October 1945 to find his family forms a poignant closure to this remarkable tale. A beautifully rendered work wrought with enormous care and sense of compassionate dignity.

Kirkus Reviews