Category: Autobiography & Biography

Conversations with UH Press Authors

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Besides the NPR “Crime in the City” interview with Victoria Kneubuhl that aired August 13, other “talk stories” with UH Press authors took place in the past month:

Hawai‘i Public Radio‘s The Conversation interviewed jazz saxophonist Gabe Baltazar about his memoir, If It Swings, It’s Music. Listen to the  “Book ’em, Gabe-o…with a new autobiography” in the HPR archives for August 7.

Gabe was also featured in the “Old Friends” column that appeared in the August 29 edition of MidWeek, mailed to over 270,000 homes in Hawai‘i. Read the online version here.

On August 27, HPR’s The Conversation caught up with Jim Tranquada at Occidental College to talk about The ‘Ukulele: A History. Listen to the “Madeiran melody maker morphs into a jumping flea…” in the archived show.

The editor of MauiTime interviewed author Tom Coffman about his inspiring new book, I Respectfully Dissent: A Biography of Edward H. Nakamura. Read Coffman’s take on Justice Nakamura’s legacy as a labor attorney and Supreme Court justice in the August 23 cover story, “Standing Alone.”

UH Press Around the Web

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Tom Coffman’s recent biography of Edward Nakamura, I Respectfully Dissent, is enjoying great press in the Hawai‘i media. In addition to Richard Borreca’s piece “New book makes it clear why Nakamura mattered,” the Honolulu Star-Advertiser covered the book in a review by Dave Shapiro:

“If your idealism needs a reboot, read political historian Tom Coffman’s new book I Respectfully Dissent. . . . The book provides a history of the times as well as a biography of the man, following Nakamura through his service in the 442nd, his career as a top labor lawyer, his time as a University of Hawaii regent, his term on the Supreme Court and his ‘retirement’ years as perhaps the most influential critic of the Democratic revolution that had given way to greed and malfeasance. Nakamura was defined by personal modesty, an immense intellect, a true ethical compass and an unwavering belief in democracy in its broadest sense.” (Star-Advertiser subscribers can read the full review here.)

Honolulu Civil Beat’s Chad Blair calls the biography “reverently, warmly and revealingly told”:

“[I]t is a remarkable story. . . . What Coffman has done is to share Nakamura’s story in a fresh, instructive way that reminds Hawaii of, as Lincoln put it, the better angels of our nature. . . . Coffman makes history seem less distant and gives life to a man who may have been forgotten by many.” (Read the full review here.)

Legendary sax man Gabe Baltazar will be performing tonight (Friday, July 6, 6 pm) in the Hawai’i State Art Museum’s A Star-Studded Evening of Jazz. Baltazar will also be signing copies of his autobiography If It Swings, It’s Music:

“Open it on almost any page and it will be difficult to stop reading. Written in conversational style with assistance from music fan Theo Garneau, Baltazar’s book will appeal to several distinct audiences, including jazz fans and longtime Baltazar admirers. His stories of life here in the ’30s and ’40s will fascinate anyone with an interest in what things were like ‘back in the day,’ while another section of the book shares an insiders’ look at the national jazz scene of the ’50s and ’60s.” (Read the full Honolulu Pulse (Star-Advertiser) article here.)

Family Torn Apart Roundtable Discussion

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Join Lily Ozaki Arasato for a roundtable discussion of Family Torn Apart: The Internment Story of the Otokichi Muin Ozaki Family on Saturday, June 23, 10:30-11:30 am, at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i’s Community Gallery. Ms. Arasato is the daughter of Otokichi Ozaki, who was a Japanese language school teacher and tanka poet in Hilo. Family Torn Apart traces Ozaki’s WWII incarceration at eight different camps, his family’s life in Hawai‘i without him, and later their move to join Ozaki in the camps.

Family Torn Apart is distributed by UH Press for the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i.

Biography of Edward Nakamura

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I Respectfully DissentI Respectfully Dissent, Tom Coffman’s portrait of Edward Nakamura, is both insightful biography and engrossing political history. The arc of the story may sound familiar (the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the GI Bill, Statehood), but it is strewn with surprise, resulting from Nakamura’s unshakable creed and unique angle of vision. Translating the political gains of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Nakamura played a central role—unpublicized—in devising arguably the most progressive program of legislation in an American state: universal health care, temporary disability insurance, collective bargaining rights for public workers, and more—all of which forever changed the Hawai‘i worker’s landscape.

“Rarely do we encounter someone who not only touches our daily lives but also shapes society for the better. Ed Nakamura was such a person, a visionary who lived simply, who was gentle in manner yet fierce in his life-long devotion to justice.” —Lowell Chun-Hoon, labor lawyer

May 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3572-9 / $14.99 (PAPER)

Gabe Baltazar Radio Interview and at the Hawaii Book and Music Festival

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Gabe Baltazar Jr, whose autobiography If It Swings, It’s Music was published this month, was interviewed last March by Tucson jazz radio host Jake Feinberg. For some backstory on the interview, go to http://www.bonhawaii.com/legendary-sax-player-gabe-baltazar-worldwide-radio-show; for the interview, go to http://www.jakefeinbergshow.com/2012/03/jfs-65-the-gabe-baltazar-interview/.

Catch Gabe on YouTube reminiscing at this month’s Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival:

Autobiography of Jazz Musician Gabe Baltazar Jr.

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If It Swings, It's MusicHawai‘i’s legendary jazz musician Gabe Baltazar Jr. has thrilled audiences since the late 1940s with his powerful and passionate playing. In If It Swings, It’s Music, the first book on his life and career, Gabe takes readers through the highs, lows, and in-betweens on the long road to becoming one of the very few Asian Americans who has achieved worldwide acclaim as a jazz artist.

“Gabe Baltazar is a living example of the rare Asian American jazz musician who enjoyed a national and international career, one that took place during an important transitional period when jazz was being transformed from a popular idiom into a bona fide tradition. His story provides insight into a real working jazz musician’s life with all its headaches, victories, defeats, and joys.” —Kevin Fellezs, Columbia University

May 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3637-5 / $24.99 (PAPER)

Race, Nation, and Sexuality in the Affairs of Yone Noguchi

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Queer CompulsionsWhile confessing his love to fellow writer Charles Warren Stoddard, Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) had a child (future sculptor Isamu Noguchi) with his editor, Léonie Gilmour; became engaged to Washington Post reporter Ethel Armes; and upon his return to Japan married Matsu Takeda—all within a span of seven years. According to Amy Sueyoshi’s Queer Compulsions: Race, Nation, and Sexuality in the Affairs of Yone Noguchi, Noguchi was not a dedicated polyamorist: He deliberately deceived the three women, to whom he either pretended or promised marriage while already married. Sueyoshi argues further that Noguchi’s intimacies point to little-known realities of race and sexuality in turn-of-the-century America and illuminate how Asian immigrants negotiated America’s literary and arts community. As Noguchi maneuvered through cultural and linguistic differences, his affairs additionally assert how Japanese in America could forge romantic fulfillment during a period historians describe as one of extreme sexual deprivation and discrimination for Asians, particularly in California.

“There is no question that Amy Sueyoshi is a very gifted historian who has mined every available source on Yone Noguchi. Her work is as exhaustive and deep in its interrogation of the extant literature as one could possibly hope for. Moreover, it has placed the life history of Yone Noguchi in a broad sweep of various fields of academic inquiry that gives his particular experiences relevance well beyond the field of Asian American history. The story of this rather unknown and unremarkable poet is rife with intellectual and academic meaning well beyond the significance of a late nineteenth-century historical biography.” —Tomas Almaguer, San Francisco State University

February 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3497-5 / $40.00 (CLOTH)

Distributed for the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii

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Family Torn ApartFamily Torn Apart: The Internment Story of the Otokichi Muin Ozaki Family, edited by Gail Honda, is the gripping story of one Hawai‘i family’s World War II odyssey. Otokichi Ozaki, a Japanese immigrant, was a Japanese language school teacher, tanka poet, and anthurium grower and also a leader of the Japanese community in the city of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. Based on letters, poetry, and radio scripts in the collection of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, and translated here for the first time, this work traces Ozaki’s incarceration at eight different detention camps, his family’s life in Hawai‘i without him, their decision to ‘voluntarily’ enter Mainland detention camps in the hope of reuniting, and their subsequent frustration as that reunion bogged down in red tape and government apathy.

January 2012 / ISBN 978-0-9761493-1-6 / $26.00 (PAPER)
Distributed for the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i

Press Author Interviews

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Mark Panek, author of Big Happiness: The Life and Death of a Modern Hawaiian Warrior, will be interviewed by Willa Tanabe as the featured guest on the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii’s “Thinking Out Loud” radio show on Monday, December 26, 6:30-7:30 p.m. The show broadcasts live from the KZOO-AM 1210 studio at Shirokiya in Ala Moana Center and will be archived for later listening. More details about the radio program can be found here: http://jcch.com/thinking-out-loud.asp

Victoria Kneubuhl will be interviewed on Hawai‘i Public Radio’s weekday morning show, The Conversation, on Tuesday, December 20, 8-9 am. Listen live on KIPO FM89.3 and KIPM FM89.7.

Ms. Kneubuhl also talked in-depth about her work, including her latest mystery, Murder Leaves Its Mark, on the KZOO “Thinking Out Loud” program. Her November 28 interview can be heard here: http://www.kzoohawaii.com/jp/programs/tol.html

Big Happiness: One of the Best Local Books of 2011

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Big HappinessBig Happiness: The Life and Death of a Modern Hawaiian Warrior, by Mark Panek, is called “one of the best local books of 2011” in a review at Hawai‘i Book Blog:

“Big Happiness is an account of the amazing and tragic life of Percy Kipapa, local boy turned professional sumo wrestler. In my opinion it’s an important work of creative nonfiction and one of the best local books of 2011. Using a combination of personal experiences with Kipapa, interviews, newspaper articles and court documents, Panek has seamlessly composed a narrative that tells the story of how Percy Kipapa came home a hero only to end his life as a terrible reminder of the destructive power of “meth” addiction. It’s an unofficial biography of a man and a community struggling to stay afloat in a world changing too quickly.”

Read the entire review here: http://www.hawaiibookblog.com/articles/book-review-big-happiness/.

The Day the Sun Rose in the West

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The Day the Sun Rose in the West

The Day the Sun Rose in the West: Bikini, the Lucky Dragon, and I is a compelling account of an incident that few of us remember today, but which had an impact far beyond the few fishermen on the Lucky Dragon #5 who were irradiated in the Bravo test sixty-some years ago. It is a glimpse of the world situation at the time through the lens of the unfortunate fate of the ship and its crew. The author captures the tension between Japan and the U.S. over the incident, which occurred soon after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the anti-nuclear testing crusade that was beginning even back then, the self-righteous insistence of a nuclear power on continuing nuclear tests even while asserting limited responsibility for damages, and so much more” -—Francis X. Hezel, S.J., director of Micronesian Seminar

On March 1, 1954, the U.S. exploded a hydrogen bomb at Bikini in the South Pacific. The fifteen-megaton bomb was a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, and its fallout spread far beyond the official “no-sail” zone the U.S. had designated. Fishing just outside the zone at the time of the blast, the Lucky Dragon #5 was showered with radioactive ash. Making the difficult voyage back to their homeport of Yaizu, twenty-year-old Oishi Matashichi and his shipmates became ill from maladies they could not comprehend. They were all hospitalized with radiation sickness, and one man died within a few months. The Lucky Dragon #5 became the focus of a major international incident, but many years passed before the truth behind U.S. nuclear testing in the Pacific emerged. Late in his life, overcoming social and political pressures to remain silent, Oishi began to speak about his experience and what he had since learned about Bikini. This is his story.

A Latitude 20 Book
May 2011 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3557-6 / $18.00 (PAPER)

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