Inclusion

by Tom Coffman

Following December 7, 1941, the United States government interned 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry evicted from scattered settlements throughout the West Coast states, yet why was a much larger number concentrated in the Hawaiian Islands war zone not similarly incarcerated?

At the root of the story is an inclusive community that worked from the ground up to protect an embattled segment of its population. While the onset of World War II surprised the American public, war with Japan arrived in Hawai‘i in slow motion. Responding to numerous signs of impending conflict, the Council for Interracial Unity mapped two minimize internment and maximize inclusion in the war effort. The council’s aspirational work was expressed in a widely repeated “How we get along during the war will determine how we get along when the war is over.” The Army Command of Hawai‘i, reassured by firsthand acquaintances, came to believe that “trust breeds trust.”

Where most histories have shielded President Franklin D. Roosevelt from direct responsibility for the U.S. mainland internment, his relentless demands for a mass removal from Hawai‘i―ultimately thwarted―reveal him as author and actor. In making sense of the disparity between Island and mainland, Inclusion unravels the deep history of the U.S. “sabotage psychosis,” dissecting why many continental Americans still believe Japan succeeded at Pearl Harbor because of the unseen hand of Japanese saboteurs. Contrary to the explanation of hysteria as the cause of the internment, Inclusion documents how a high-level plan of mass removal actually was pitched to Hawai‘i prior to December 7, only to be rejected.

384 pages, Paperback

Published October 31, 2021

About the author

Tom Coffman is an independent researcher, writer, and producer. He graduated from the William Allen White School, Kansas University, with a Bachelor in Journalism, and became a reporter for United Press International in New Mexico in 1965. Within a year, the managing editor of the Honolulu Advertiser loaned Coffman plane fare to come to Hawaii, where he became state government reporter for the Advertiser. He moved to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin two years later and became political reporter and bureau chief. In 1972, he wrote Catch a Wave, a widely read chronicle of the 1970 gubernatorial campaign and the social and political turmoil of that period. A year later, he left newspaper reporting to work as an independent writer and media producer.

Expanding on research for Catch a Wave, his productions increasingly incorporated historic themes. Under the guidance of the legendary Hawaiian writer John Dominis Holt, he began to integrate a chronology of the development of Hawaii, which led to the television documentaries O Hawaii: From Settlement to Kingdom and Nation Within.

Tom Coffmans work has won national awards for production of video, film, interactive media, and multi-image. Ganbare, about the early wartime experiences of Japanese Americans, was selected Best Film by a Hawaii Filmmaker at the 1995 Hawaii International Film Festival. Two of his booksthe first edition of Nation Within and The Island Edge of America: A Political History of Americareceived Ka Palapala Pookela Awards for Excellence in Nonfiction from the Hawaii Book Publishers Association. After publication of Nation Within, Coffman also received the Hawaii Award for Literature, the highest recognition given by the state of Hawaii for outstanding literary achievement. He is currently working on a film about the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr., in the Philippines."

Reviews

[Tom Peek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another ground-breaking book by renowned Hawai'i author Tom Coffman. Extensively researched - including using primary documents never analyzed before - and with his always compelling writing, Coffman opens up a new window on an important piece of post-World War II history. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the struggle for racial equality in the United States, an historical account that is especially timely now.