DelawareScene: Conversation with Tracy Slater, Author of Together in Manzanar @ Lewes Public Library

Conversation with Tracy Slater, Author of Together in Manzanar

Join the Lewes Public Library, Seaside Jewish Community, and the History Book Festival online for a conversation with Tracy Slater, author of Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp. On a late March morning in the spring of 1942, Elaine Yoneda awoke to a series of terrible choices: between her family and freedom, her country and conscience, and her son and daughter.

Anyone with even “one drop” of Japanese blood was ordered by the US government to relocate into a detention camp. That is how Elaine Buchman Yoneda ended up in Manzanar with her 3-year-old son and husband Karl Yoneda. The young child had serious illnesses, and she refused to be separated from him as he had to be sent to the camp with his father. This would begin one of many difficult decisions the family faced while incarcerated in this isolated desert setting unfit for human habitation. Both Elaine and her husband supported the US cause in the war and became embroiled in camp political discord as well as in protests seeking improved conditions. These events of prejudice and the abuse of power are as relevant today as ever. As one reviewer pointed out, “this book fills a long-overdue gap in the historical narrative, giving voice to a mixed-race experience in discussions of World War II and Japanese American incarceration.”

Tracy Slater, a Jewish American author, has published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. She taught writing for over ten years in Boston-area universities and in men’s and women’s prisons throughout Massachusetts.

This collaborative program by the Lewes Public Library, Seaside Jewish Community, History Book Festival, and Browseabout Books is part of a series in observation of America250, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, marking America’s Semiquincentennial.

NOTE: this meeting is being conducted through Zoom. You MUST REGISTER to receive instructions for joining the meeting.

250th Anniversary History & Culture Virtual Southern Delaware