This beautiful and poignant biography of Issei artist Kamekichi Tokita uses his paintings and wartime diary to vividly illustrate the experiences, uncertainties, joys, and anxieties of Japanese Americans during the World War II internment and the more optimistic times that preceded it. Tokita emigrated from Japan in the early twentieth century and settled in Seattle's Japanese American immigrant community. By the 1930s, he was established as a prominent member of the Northwest art scene and allied with the region's progressive artists. His art shares qualities of American Realism while it...

Takuichi Fujii (1891-1964) left Japan in 1906 to make his home in Seattle, where he established a business, started a family, and began his artistic practice. When war broke out between the United States and Japan, he and his family were incarcerated along with the more than 100,000 ethnic Japanese located on the West Coast. Sent to detention camps at Puyallup, Washington, and then Minidoka in Idaho, Fujii documented his daily experiences in words and art. The Hope of Another Spring reveals the rare find of a large and heretofore unknown collection of art produced during World War...