Smithsonian's Franklin Odo To Read From Book 'No Sword To Bury'

Franklin Odo, Director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program and curator at the National Museum of American History, will read from his latest book, No Sword to Bury: Japanese Americans in Hawaii during WWII, at a program set for the Japanese American National Museum on Sunday, April 4, beginning at 2 p.m. The event is co-sponsored by the National Museum and the Go For Broke Educational Foundation.

Dr. Odo explores the complicated story of a group of Japanese American college students living in Hawai`i when World War II erupts at Pearl Harbor. Enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), these young men were immediately called upon to help defend the islands against a feared invasion by the Japanese Imperial forces. But in the ensuing weeks, the military government questions the loyalty of these sons of Japanese immigrants and ultimately disarms them.

Through oral histories, Dr. Odo follows the different threads of this story, including the service of the Varsity Victory Volunteers, a non-military group dedicated to public works. He also looks at the history of the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team, formed only after the War Department decides to let Japanese Americans fight for their country and the work of Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS), where expertise in the Japanese language proves crucial.

The stories don’t end with the war, as many of these veterans play vital roles in business and politics in Hawai`i. But, Dr. Odo also dispels the notion that the wartime heroism and the post-war success of Japanese Americans in Hawai`i made them the model minority. The book looks at the critical moment in the ethnic identity formation of the Nisei in Hawai`i.

Dr. Odo is also the editor of The Columbia Documentary History of the Asian American Experience and author of A Pictorial History of the Japanese in Hawai`i. He was a co-editor of Roots: An Asian American Reader. A long-time instructor in the field of Asian American studies and ethnic studies, Dr. Odo currently teaches a course in the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Maryland.

Lane Hirabayashi, professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Riverside, will discuss the book with Dr. Odo. Prof. Hirabayashi described No Sword to Bury as “a masterful contribution based on years of painstaking research. In fact, there is nothing quite like it written about the Japanese American experience.”

The program is free to Japanese American National Museum and Go For Broke Educational Foundation members or with general admission. Reservations are recommended. Please call the Japanese American National Museum at (213) 625-0414.