In 1955 Pan American World Airways began recruiting Japanese American women to work as stewardesses on its Tokyo-bound flights and eventually its round-the-world flights as well. Based in Honolulu, these women were informally known as Pan Am s Nisei second-generation Japanese Americans even though not all of them were Japanese American or second-generation. They were ostensibly hired for their Japanese-language skills, but few spoke Japanese fluently. This absorbing account of Pan Am s Nisei stewardess program suggests that the Japanese American (and later other Asian and Asian American)...