In June 2024, I interviewed Frank Abe, the award-winning writer, journalist, and filmmaker, who co-authored a brilliant graphic novel on Japanese American resistance to wartime incarceration, in collaboration with Tamiko Nimura, Ross Ishikawa, and Matt Sasaki: We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration (2021). We Hereby Refuse was a Finalist in Creative Nonfiction for the Washington State Book Awards; it helps us to learn the history of Japanese American internment during WWII and their activism and resistance in the face of this injustice. Before this, Abe won an American Book Award for JOHN OKADA: The Life & Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy (University of Washington Press, 2018), co-edited with Greg Robinson and Floyd Cheung. With Shannon Gee, Abe made the award-winning PBS documentary, Conscience and the Constitution, on the largest organized camp resistance. He’s now developing a new stage adaptation of No-No Boy. With writer Frank Chin, Abe helped produce the first-ever “Day of Remembrance” in 1978, and together they invented a new Japanese American tradition by producing car caravans and media events in Seattle and Portland that publicly dramatized the campaign for redress. “Days of Remembrance” are now an annual event wherever Japanese Americans live. Abe most recently edited a new Penguin Classics anthology with Floyd Cheung of The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration. In this interview with me, Abe shares his perspective on the intersection between his art and politics and why he felt it essential to illuminate this hidden history of resistance through comics.

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Riya: Thank you so much for talking with me; it’s wonderful to meet you. I learned so much from the story of Japanese American pain and resistance in We Hereby Refuse. I have also interviewed your co-author Tamiko Nimura, so I really appreciate the opportunity to interview you today.

Frank Abe: You’re welcome. So what would you like to talk about? How did your interview with Tamiko go?

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Riya: It went well—she’s wonderful and so inspiring! I wanted to start by hearing your thoughts on what inspired you to create We Hereby Refuse, and what you hoped readers would take away from it.

Frank Abe: Well, from talking to Tamiko, you know that we were commissioned by the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience. It was not like we had set out to do this on our own. But for me, it was a continuation of work that I had done on a film in the year 2000 called Conscience in the Constitution. So, I did this film on PBS about the Heart Mountain draft resisters—the largest organized resistance to the camps—bringing back the story of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee. So when the Wing Luke Museum put out a call for proposals, they had three subjects: soldiers, draft resisters, camp resistance, and those who helped—white allies. I think the fact that the subject of camp resistance was even one of the three topics selected was the result of the work that I did in 2000. Along with another filmmaker and another author, each working independently, we were all coming to the same place. For me, it was my niche. My work has always revolved around not just Japanese Americans’ incarceration, but also resistance to incarceration. So when this topic came up, it was right in my wheelhouse. I had to do this, even though I had other projects to do. So, I really appreciated that.

The mission of the Wing Luke Museum is to connect everyone to Asian American history through vivid storytelling. They grasped the power of the graphic novel to bring together art and history for readers of all ages. And when you read a graphic novel, when you immerse yourself in personal stories, that can generate empathy. So, just as a documentary film generates empathy, the task here was to generate empathy for the three characters. For me, it was a natural partnership. What I hope is that people take away from the novel the message that there was dissent and protest in the American concentration camps and that people did not docilely accept their circumstances.

The other message I wanted to get across was the arc of the camp experience. This resistance we described in three different characters was resistance to acts of the government. And to convey that, I wanted the reader to understand what the government did—a succession of adverse actions against the people in the camps, each of which aggravated the previous one. So, you go from exclusion to detention to long-term incarceration, to the questionnaire, to the draft, to the opportunity to renounce your citizenship in camp, which leads to the trap of self-deportation, then resettlement, and then redress.

And then, it is important to connect all that to the present moment. There’s not just one message we wanted to get across; there are several. The last message of the book is also equally important: you must connect America’s past to America’s present. Bringing up Hiroshi Kashiwagi in particular, from his fight to regain his citizenship after he had foolishly renounced it, to the events over the last eight years, when we saw America once again turning against people because of their race, or their religion, or in 2016, their immigration status. So, in 2016, 2017, 2018, we wrote this book during that period—2018, 2019, 2020, and to 2021—when “Never Again is Now” began to be the watch cry of our community because we saw it happening again. That is another message we want to get across.

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Riya: I got that message from the novel about how it is equally relevant today. Its lessons and struggles resonate in new ways, and this was so powerful and inspiring for me. As you developed the book together, were there any particular challenges or surprises that you encountered—either when researching or when you were immersed in the process of writing and illustrating?

Frank Abe: Only one, and that’s because I already knew Hiroshi Kashiwagi and Frank Chin. And I knew Hiroshi on my own. I also knew Jim Akutsu. So, researching their stories was simply a matter of fleshing out the details for the artists. How many guard towers were there at Tule Lake when Hiroshi Kashiwagi was there? What did Jim Akutsu’s family’s shoe shop look like before the war? The artists found this wonderful photograph that shows an accurate representation of the sign in front of the shoe repair shop. This is a perfect boot-shaped sign for a shoe repair shop. We didn’t make it up. It’s completely accurate. So, that was just a lot of hard work.

I would say the real challenge was Mitsuye Endo because she has given only two interviews, and there are no recordings of her voice. I didn’t have her voice in my head, like I did for Jim Akutsu, who I knew very well. Jim loved to talk. Endo avoided the press, as we explained in the book. Since she avoided interviews, there are no recordings of her voice—only photographs. The challenge was to animate her character in a way that was as faithful to her personality as possible. We had to understand her personality, not just her circumstances of agreeing to be recruited for a habeas corpus case and taking it all the way to the Supreme Court. But in that regard, she was still just a name on a court docket—a name in a history book and a court docket. So, the challenge in a graphic novel was to bring her alive as a person.

We did a lot of research and found her letters, which were extremely helpful because then we had her voice through her writing. I took so much from her letters and interviews and placed these small details in the right spots in the story. By using her actual words, I began to develop the character. Her character is defined by action. Through her actions, she defines her character. We begin to understand that she was reluctant at first but willing to do what was best for the community and for the people. That’s who she was—the measure of who she was. There were enough personal asides and comments in her interviews, like how odd she felt to think that her name was part of American history in that way, that we could bring her to life.

Incidentally, there’s been a campaign to get Mitsuye Endo the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Yesterday, the White House announced the recipients, and she was not on the list. Sadly, in her place was the actress Michelle Yeoh, who I admire for her outspokenness in terms of representation in the film industry—for Asian representation. I also admire her as a big James Bond fan—Tomorrow Never Dies was a favorite. I appreciate Michelle for that. However, she is not even a US citizen. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest US civilian honor. It’s a puzzling choice, and we hope that in the next round, the White House will include Mitsuye Endo for the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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Riya: Yes, I also hope that in the future, Mitsuye Endo’s contribution to the United States is honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. You touched on this already a little bit. Still, I would love to hear more about your thoughts on how you see the legacy of Japanese American resistance during World War II influencing contemporary movements for social justice and civil rights today.

Frank Abe: The experience of incarceration is something we never asked for. But having gone through it—collectively, as I was born after the war—it gives us a certain moral authority to talk about it. And with that moral authority, people interview us, right? They interview me, they interview our parents’ generation. They’re now called camp survivors, which I think is an odd term. Nevertheless, the internment camp survivors have a story to tell, and that story gives them a certain moral authority. With that, I believe we have the moral responsibility to speak out in allyship with others who are similarly targeted by the U.S. government based on race, religion, immigration status, gender identity, or sexual orientation. More recently, anything that can make one different makes you “the other” in the eyes of the white monoculture—the dominant culture. The demonization of “the other” is what led to the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans based on race. We have an obligation to speak up in allyship with those targeted now. I’m pleased that my friends and colleagues have done that in groups like the Zulu for Solidarity Movement or by going to the southern border to protest the family separations that were happening several years ago and to protest the placing of kids in cages.

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Riya: Yes, it is so essential that we learn the lessons about the past, and I appreciate how you connect your experience in solidarity with present struggles. My next question is about you: who would you say is your biggest inspiration?

Frank Abe: Frank Chin, a Chinese American playwright, was my mentor—though not by his choice. I came to San Francisco in the ‘70s and was immediately struck by his vision for creating an Asian American sensibility and literature with the pioneering anthology Aiiieeeee! It celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Frank introduced me, along with others like Lawson Fusao Inada, Shawn Wong, and Jeff Chan, to the story of our incarceration—a history I hadn’t been taught in class. My parents, my father, didn’t talk about it. I was aware of it in college, but they opened the doors for me to the range of camp experiences that are part of this history, and equally, to the need to recover that history.

Another inspiration is that I was a child of the ’60s, and I grew up watching a lot of television. Shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and particularly a British series called The Prisoner. “I’m not a number, I’m a free man.” There’s no direct connection between The Prisoner and Japanese American incarceration camps, but the series is about a village where Number Six is kidnapped and sent to this village—a prison from which he can’t escape. People want information from him about why he resigned from his spy job. This show was a huge influence on me in high school and college in terms of questioning authority and embracing a spirit of rebelliousness. It’s a strange connection, but that instinct to question authority and to rebel has stayed with me.

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Riya: I love that startling connection. I will have to check out The Prisoner. Shifting gears, I’m curious: what advice would you give to students or readers interested in learning more about this topic or who want to advocate for similar causes today?

Frank Abe: They should pick up a book that just came out, published by Penguin Classics, called Literature of Japanese American Incarceration, which I co-edited with Greg Robinson. This book is something we’re hoping will be adopted in high school and college courses. It covers the literature from before the camps, during the camps, and after the camps, with bite-size selections featuring voices of both protest and collaboration. But the collective voice is of a people who were subjected to adverse actions by the U.S. government solely based on race. This book offers the actual writings of those people, not just of resistance, but also of cooperation and collaboration. It’s a comprehensive look at the experiences and the fight against the actions taken by the Japanese American leadership, JACL, and others during that time. I hope people pick this up, as it parallels the journey depicted in the graphic novel, but through the actual voices of those who lived it.

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Riya: I definitely plan to buy this book and look forward to reading it.

Frank Abe: Incidentally, the connection for your interview is that the last selection brings the writings from the anti-Japanese sentiment during the Vincent Chin incident in the 1980s up to 9/11, when we had calls for Arab American and Iranian American internment based on the World Trade Center attacks. It also covers the present-day issues of kids in cages and family separations. The last selection includes excerpts from We Hereby Refuse. I felt guilty including my own work in my anthology, but it was the one piece that really landed the narrative of crafting the incarceration of World War II to today. So, people will just have to deal with it.

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Riya: I didn’t have this question planned, but you were hired to turn it into a graphic novel, right? So I am wondering: do you think there’s something important or unique about the graphic narrative medium, compared to other forms of writing?

Frank Abe: Absolutely. A graphic novel offers more immediacy and empathy than an academic work or even traditional literature on the page. You get a lot of emotion and feeling from it. A graphic novel appeals to younger people who are more visually oriented, having been raised on TVs, computer screens, and video games. The visual aspect engages the readers and advances the mission of vivid storytelling. It immerses you in personal stories, generating empathy for the characters. In many ways, a graphic novel is like a storyboard for a movie—without the dialogue. Movies are powerful, and a graphic novel is almost a paper representation of that power. The form is growing in popularity, respectability, and scholarly acceptance.

For example, the University of Washington Press, which published my biography of John Okada—the author of No-No Boy—was hesitant to publish our graphic novel at first. They said it wasn’t in their wheelhouse and didn’t know how to market it. Cut to eight years later, and now they’re saying, “Hey, we want a graphic novel of No-No Boy.” We’ve seen graphic novels of other classic works, like The Diary of Anne Frank and Octavia Butler’s books. They’re just another way to tell a story visually on the page, as opposed to on the screen.

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Riya: That’s how you teach it?

Frank Abe: Exactly! And I have to say, the challenge wasn’t just historical, but also about learning how to write a graphic novel. None of us knew how when we started, although the artists were trained in comics. I went back to Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. His work gave me just enough theory about juxtaposed pictorial images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information or produce an aesthetic response, to figure out how to tell the story sequentially on the page. Another great resource was the book How to Write Comics Like the Pros by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente. Greg was a friend from film festivals, and now he’s big-time with Dynamite Comics and Marvel. His book provided the script template I needed to write a graphic novel. It took about two years to really study, struggle with, and finally understand how to write the script, set the scenes for the artists, and research and provide the necessary photographs. It was a significant challenge.

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Riya: I appreciate your sharing this process—especially for those of us starting out in this visual storytelling space, it is so helpful to know about the challenges and guides out there. I know I’ve gone over the time I initially requested, and I want to be respectful of your time, so I’d like to say how wonderful it was to have this conversation. Thank you so much for all that you’ve shared, and for meeting with me. I learned a lot, and I really appreciate it!

Frank Abe: Well, how could I say no when you’ve studied the graphic novel so closely? I really appreciate that—it means a lot.

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Riya: Thank you so much.

Frank Abe: Thank you, Riya.

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