Accessibility Tools

Announcing two events for Greg Robinson's THE GREAT UNKNOWN

October 19, 2016

64bf6a24 6c9c 418c 8ea4 c0af42aa12e2

Two Bay Area events on Saturday, October 29, 2016 will celebrate historian Greg Robinson’s just-released book The Great Unknown: Japanese American Sketches:

• Official Book Launch: 11am on October 29 followed by a reception at the National Japanese American Historical Society Peace Gallery, 1684 Post St. in San Francisco’s Japantown

• East Bay Event: 4pm on October 29 at J-Sei, 1285 66th St. in Emeryville, California

SPECIAL BOOK RELEASE PRICE: $35 (regular $45)

RSVP or pre-order the book at www.nichibei.org/the-great-unknown-book-launch.

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

In The Great Unknown, award-winning historian and journalist Greg Robinson offers a fascinating and compulsively readable collection of biographical portraits of extraordinary but unheralded figures in Japanese American history: men and women who made remarkable contributions in the arts, literature, law, sports, and other fields. Recovering and celebrating the stories of noteworthy Issei and Nisei and of their supporters, The Great Unknown provides powerful evidence of the diverse experiences and substantial cultural, political, and intellectual contributions of Nikkei throughout the country and over multiple decades.

What is more, The Great Unknown reshapes our understanding of the Asian American experience. By focusing attention on exceptional figures who deviated from social norms, Robinson subverts stereotypes of ethnic Japanese and other Asians as conformist or colorless. The collection also highlights a set of recurring themes absent from conventional histories—including the lives of Japanese Americans outside the West Coast, the role of women in shaping community life, encounters between Japanese American and African American communities during the struggle for civil rights, and the evolving status of queer community members.

 

University Press of Colorado University of Alaska Press Utah State University Press University of Wyoming Press