Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto

PACIFIC NORTHWEST CLOUD COVER AND THE DAMP chill gave way the farther south Harry traveled. In September 1938 he disembarked to brilliant sunshine and T-shirt temperatures. Los Angeles hummed with people, activity, and ambition. Its population, surpassing more than a million, made it the fifth-largest metropolis in the United States. Priding itself in innovation, Los Angeles had hosted a summer Olympiad at its recently enlarged Coliseum, introduced traffic lights along its handsome boulevards, opened an experimental television station, and converted a bean field into its first drive-in movie theater. While Harry, initially befuddled by his reliably poor sense of direction, was getting the lay of the land, Charlie Chaplin was at home in Beverly Hills, penning his satirical screenplay for The Great Dictator.