Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II

Brown (The Boys in the Boat) chronicles in this bravura account the experiences of Japanese American soldiers and their families during WWII. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were sent to internment camps for the duration of the war. By 1943, after more than a year of persistent lobbying for the chance to prove their patriotism, draft-age Nisei (those born in the U.S. to Japanese immigrant parents) could volunteer for “a segregated, all-Japanese American fighting unit” in the U.S. Army. Brown details tensions between recruits from the mainland and Hawaii (where Japanese Americans were not interned) during their training in Jim Crow–era Mississippi, and dramatically recounts their rescue of a “lost battalion” of besieged Texas infantrymen in eastern France in October 1944. Drawing from extensive firsthand accounts, Brown interweaves the stories of dozens of Japanese American soldiers with the experiences of their interned families back in the U.S., and tracks legal battles waged by Nisei who refused to sign loyalty oaths or register for the draft because they believed their civil rights had been violated. The result is an illuminating and spirited portrait of courage under fire. Agent: Dorian Karchmar, WME. (May)