Nor Cal Book Launch Lifted Off

The Northern California Book Launch Saturday in Livermore was as joyous as the first two launches.

The highlights were many-- Dr. Kent Haldan, whose research made the book possible, shared innumerable juicy details of his work digging out the story. His presentation sounded like "Book Notes" on CSPAN. He talked about baseball becoming an acceptable Nisei weapon of self-assertion during camp and post-war days. And he talked about interviewing recalcitrant farmers fifty years after they led their campaign to block return by evacuees to the Central Coast.

Richard Endo, eldest son of Fumiye Iwamoto Endo, talked of the close connection which remains yet today between the Guadalupe Buddhist Temple, of which the Lompoc temple was long a branch, and the large temples in California's urban centers. "We use it for retreats," he explained.

Chiyo Iwamoto Kobayashi, the Prom Queen of Chapter One of Vanished, had decided that a one-day trip from Los Angeles to Livermore was a probably too much for an 85-year-old, but guess what --she changed her mind. "My nephew and niece were coming so I decided I wanted to see them," she said with a grin as she walked in the door.

The event was attended not just be relatives of one-time Lompocans, but by members of the Livermore Presbyterian Church, the host United Christian Church, and the Livermore Genealogical Society

It was announced that Vanished had been reviewed in a full-page account in the October KaMai Forum, but the capper was an e-mail which Haldan had received from Dr. Arthur Hansen, Professor Emeritus of History at Cal State Fullerton. Dr. Hansen offered these words about Vanished:

"This book is a minor classic in terms not only of narrative force, organizational clarity, innovative research, and intellectual penetration, but also for what it contributes to the democratic triumvirate of diversity, civil liberties, and social justice. Reading it made a similar impact that Michi Weglyn's classic Years of Infamy: the Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps had on me when I first encountered it."

Wow. We thought we had a good book, but comparison to Michi Weglyn represents, as Haldan would call it, a home run.