Greg Robinson (1)

The Unsung Great, by historian Greg Robinson, is subtitled "Stories of Extraordinary Japanese Americans." It's a compilation of columns from the San Francisco-based newspaper Nichi Bei Weekly or posted on Discover Nikkei, the Japanese American National Museum blog. As such, the writing in this book is more journalistic and less academically oriented than By Order of the President, a study of Franklin Roosevelt's attitudes towards Japanese Americans and how that may have influenced his show more Executive Order 9066, which relocated and interned over 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. This makes the book more readable and entertaining to the average lay reader. It's a collection of short profiles of distinguished Japanese-Americans and their contributions to American society. Robinson groups these little biographies into rough categories such as those who were mixed-race; writers; experienced wartime confinement; were politically active or involved in civil rights; contributors to arts and sciences; were queer, or lived in communities outside of the West Coast. Reading these tales, you realize how much these immigrants or children of immigrants gave to their adopted country. In this time of anti-immigration backlash and the backsliding of Democracy, Robinson's books are particularly salient. He reminds us of the importance of the Immigrant Story, the ever-present forces of Nativism, and how fragile Democracy can be as newcomers attempt to assimilate in a country that frequently fears and vilifies them. show less

Historian Greg Robinson, a childhood friend, and classmate I recently reunited with after 40 years told me that By Order of the President, adapted from his Ph.D. thesis, received unusual attention for a work of history. It came out around 2001 and readers and the media noticed the parallel themes of the book and what was happening in the United States at that time, namely: hostility, fear of, and persecution of immigrants and non-white citizens, a nation attacked by an enemy and at war show more (Pearl Harbor vs. the World Trade Center), the abridgment of freedoms and suspension of constitutional rights, etc. But in truth, the book is as relevant today, 20 years later, as it was at the turn of the century. Having lived through the Trump years and the continuation of Trumpism, the United States is still tackling many of these issues. And the anti-Japanese sentiments driven by fear and hostility of The Other, described in the book, have been directed at other immigrant groups as well throughout American history. For example, Ken Burns's recent documentary, America and the Holocaust, describes how the United States' policies of keeping immigration to a minimum before and during World War II had dire implications for the Jews who were being exterminated in Europe. Robinson's book takes a critical view of FDR and his Executive Order 9066 which resulted in the forced removal from California and the eventual internment of Japanese, both first and second-generation, aliens and U.S. Citizens alike. The book comprehensively explains what external political, social, and economic factors contributed to it, and what characteristics and weaknesses of FDR, an otherwise venerated man, and President, allowed this unconstitutional and unjust stain on American history to happen. show less