BookBrowse Reviews Midnight in Broad Daylight by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto

BookBrowse:

The true story of a Japanese American family that found itself on opposite sides during World War II.

Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds is a moving nonfiction work that chronicles the lives of Harry Fukuhara and his family during World War II. Caught up on both sides of the fighting, the Fukuharas faced divided loyalties during a war that engulfed the world.

Harry Fukuhara always lived in a border world. Growing up in Auburn, Washington, where his father, Katsuji, had immigrated in 1900, Harry and his family had been prosperous until the Great Depression when their lives slowly began to unravel. When Katsuji died in 1933, the Fukuharas were left with few prospects, except to return to Japan.

Harry and his younger siblings, Pierce and Frank, chafed at the idea. Although his older siblings, Victor and Mary, had spent their formative years in Japan, Harry was a nisei, or American-born, and had never set foot there. Before leaving Washington, Harry exacted a promise from his mother: "If I didn't like it, I could go back." Harry never found his niche in Japan, nor did he find one upon returning to the USA years later. When anti-Japanese sentiment intensified after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Harry's life was uprooted again when he and thousands of other Japanese Americans were forced into hastily established internment camps.

In an attempt to escape the scorching desert heat at Gila camp, Harry applied to become an interpreter: "Army recruiters were coming to interview Japanese speakers for a language school in Minnesota. They were looking for men fluent in high school Japanese. On a whim, Harry signed up." Harry joined the United States Army. The army's goal was to send the language school students to the front lines of fighting to interpret intercepted Japanese missives. Because Harry already knew most of the weaponry and military terminology from his time in school in Japan, he excelled at the language school and was sent to the Pacific theater, which was the heat of the battle at the time. Harry's greatest fear now became that he would come face to face in battle with his three brothers, who had remained in Japan with their mother, Kinu.

Author Pamela Rotner Sakamoto brilliantly captures the hardships and anxieties of the Fukuhara family. She presents the story chronologically, with slight exceptions to bring readers up to speed on what happens simultaneously for Harry while in the army and to his family while in Japan. Harry's story is the focal point of the work, but Sakamoto spends significant time on Frank's plight as well. Forced to enlist in the Imperial Army, Frank faced one challenge after another, and like Harry, his nisei status haunted him because neither army fully trusted someone with dual citizenship.

Displacement is the primary focus of Midnight in Broad Daylight. Because the Fukuharas spent years in both the United States and in Japan, they did not fit in anywhere. They relied on their familial bonds to fortify them in times of uncertainty; their dependency on and love for one another is palpable throughout the book. The reading is slow at times, especially in the middle section which is devoted to the build-up of the war. Once in the thick of battle, Harry's story gains speed. The horrors he sees and the discrimination he encounters will leave readers pondering how the experience did not embitter him.

Remembering all of the family members presented in the Japan segments is difficult. Not all of the relationships are clear, and sometimes people are introduced, then disappear for too long before being mentioned again, resulting in readers forgetting their importance. This issue will not prevent readers from following the events, but it may niggle the detail-oriented.

Coming in at 464 pages, complete with a glossary for Japanese terms and a detailed notes section, Midnight in Broad Daylight is an inspirational work about a courageous family.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in February 2016, and has been updated for the February 2017 edition. Click here to go to this issue.