Overview
Incarceration to Inspiration: Ikigai Legacy of an American Jap Girl In 1925, three-year-old Tome, one of nine children, is abandoned by her birth parents. Raised by a foster family who instill in her the Bushido code of honor and perseverance, she grows up believing she's an all-American girl-until America brands her a ""Jap."" When Executive Order 9066 uproots her family and confines them behind barbed wire, Tome endures injustice with quiet strength, guided by her purpose: her ikigai. Through war, poverty, and personal tragedy, including a desperate moment of near suicide-halted by her young son Richard's cry, ""No, Mommy, no!""-she transforms pain into determination. American Jap Girl, told in Tome's posthumous voice and reconstructed from family journals, reclaims a racial slur as a symbol of resilience and belonging. Spanning from the Great Depression to the rise of postwar California, Tome's story is a testament to one woman's defiance against the myth of inferiority and her transformation of suffering into legacy.
Full Product Details
Author: Richard Y Okumoto
Publisher: Digital Lifestory Press
Imprint: Digital Lifestory Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 1.60cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 0.327kg
ISBN: 9781971076010
ISBN 10: 1971076015
Pages: 282
Publication Date: 05 May 2026
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Not yet available
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.
Reviews
""This touching and heartwarming story will engage many readers. An inspirational work that weaves many accounts into an earnest account of tenacity."" - Kirkus Reviews (""Highly recommended OUR VERDICT: GET IT."") ""[Okumoto] creates an authentic voice for his mother, believable and poignant, including details that bring the period alive."" - Blueink Reviews (Starred) ""Part historical record and part filial tribute, this moving, meticulously documented memoir reconstructs the wartime life of Tome, a Japanese American woman whose identity was shaped-and nearly shattered-by incarceration, poverty, and cultural displacement."" - Booklife Reviews (Editor's Pick) ""A revealing hybrid memoir, American Jap Girl memorializes a resilient woman who faced many hardships in the course of her life."" - Foreword Clarion Reviews (4/5)
Author Information
Dr. Richard Y. Okumoto is a Sansei author and PhD qualitative researcher who reconstructed his mother's voice from journals and memory to write her posthumous memoir. A whistleblower, black-belt martial artist, and former Silicon Valley C-suite executive, he writes with Bushido discipline about resilience, truth, and cultural identity. American Jap Girl is his first book.
