Kiyo Sato

"Our camp, they tell us, is now to be called a 'relocation center' and not a 'concentration camp.' We are internees, not prisoners. Here's the truth: I am now a non-alien, stripped of my constitutional rights. I am a prisoner in a concentration camp in my own country. I sleep on a canvas cot under which is a suitcase with my life's belongings: a change of clothes, underwear, a notebook and pencil. Why?"—Kiyo Sato In 1941 Kiyo Sato and her eight younger siblings lived with their parents on a small farm near Sacramento, California, where they grew strawberries, nuts, and other crops. Kiyo had started college the year before when she was eighteen, and her eldest brother, Seiji, would soon join the US Army. The younger children attended school and worked on the farm after class and on Saturday. On Sunday, they went to church. The Satos were an ordinary American family. Until they weren't. On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The next day, US president Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan and the United States officially entered World War II. Soon after, in February and March 1942, Roosevelt signed two executive orders which paved the way for the military to round up all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast and incarcerate them in isolated internment camps for the duration of the war. Kiyo and her family were among the nearly 120,000 internees. In this moving account, Sato and Goldsmith tell the story of the internment years, describing why the internment happened and how it impacted Kiyo and her family. They also discuss the ways in which Kiyo has used her experience to educate other Americans about their history, to promote inclusion, and to fight against similar injustices. Hers is a powerful, relevant, and inspiring story to tell on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II.

When her father left Japan, his mother told him never to return: there was no future there for him. Shinji Sato arrived in California determined to plant his roots in the Land of Opportunity even though he could not become a citizen. He and his wife started a farm and worked in the fields together with their nine children. At the outbreak of World War II, when Kiyo, the eldest, was 18, the Satos were ordered to Poston Internment Camp. Though they had lived the US for two decades and their children were citizens, they were suddenly uprooted and imprisoned by the government.

Dandelion Through the Crack: The Sato Family Quest for the American Dream tells of a real Japanese-American family, formed both by ancestry and by the American way of life. We see mother, father, and children, and their challenges over seven decades. There are the extraordinary times of the Depression, wartime emergency, internment in the Poston "relocation" camp in the Arizona desert, oppressive prejudice, and the struggle to recover from near-total loss. But there are also many simple, almost-pastoral moments. The wise fables of the author's father -- tales of his old and new homelands and his haiku poetry -- are interwoven throughout. This is Kiyo Sato's first-person account of the family's struggles and triumphs. The result is a work of literary grace, emotional power, and historical and social importance.

This is the “unforgettable” memoir of a family’s journey from Japan to California—and through multiple internment camps during World War II (Sacramento News & Review). “First generation Japanese-American Sato chronicles the tribulations her family endured in America through the Great Depression and WWII. Emigrating from Japan in 1911, Sato’s parents built a home and cultivated a marginal plot of land into a modest but sustaining fruit farm. One of nine children, Sato recounts days on the farm playing with her siblings and lending a hand with child-care, house cleaning and grueling farm work. Her anecdotes regarding the family’s devotion to one another despite their meager lifestyle (her father mending a little brother’s shoe with rubber sliced from a discarded tire) gain cumulative weight, especially when hard times turn tragic: in the wake of Pearl Harbor, the Satos find themselves swept up by U.S. authorities and shuffled through multiple Japanese internment camps, ending up in a desert facility while the farm falls to ruin. Sato’s memoir is a poignant, eye-opening testament to the worst impulses of a nation in fear, and the power of family to heal the most painful wounds.” —Publishers Weekly

In 1946, as part of the Cold War arms race, the US military launched a program to test nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific Ocean. From 1946 until 1958, the military detonated sixty-seven nuclear bombs over the region's Bikini and Enewetak Atolls. The twelfth bomb, called Bravo, became the world's first nuclear disaster. It sent a toxic cloud of radiation over Rongelap Atoll and other nearby inhabited islands. The testing was intended to advance scientific knowledge about nuclear bombs and radiation, but it had much more far-reaching effects. Some of the islanders suffered burns, cancers, birth defects, and other medical tragedies as a result of radiation poisoning. Many of the Marshallese were resettled on other Pacific islands or in the United States. They and their descendants cannot yet return to Bikini, which remains contaminated by radiation. And while the United States claims it is now safe to resettle Rongelap, only a few construction workers live there on a temporary basis. For Bombs over Bikini, author Connie Goldsmith researched government documents, military film footage, and other primary source documents to tell the story of the world's first nuclear disaster. You'll meet the people who planned the test operations, the Marshall Islanders who lost their homes and suffered from radiation illnesses, and those who have worked to hold the US government accountable for catastrophically poor planning. Was the new knowledge about nuclear bombs and radiation worth the cost in human suffering? You decide.

While many scientists believed influenza would cause the next great pandemic, no one was prepared for the new strain of coronavirus that appeared in 2019. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has infiltrated every country and put global public health and the economy at risk. Health-care systems have been pushed to the limit as protective gear, life-saving equipment, tests, and vaccines are scarce and in high demand. From the initial infection to the widespread impact on daily life, Understanding Coronaviruses examines the intricacies of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 and how they compare to previous viruses and pandemics.

While in a war zone, a military working dog (MWD) and its handler live together, eat together, play together, sleep together, and risk their lives for each other every day. The dogs work with handlers in every branch of the US military. They guard military bases, sniff out concealed explosives and other weapons, and alert their handlers to hidden enemies. Learn how the military selects these special dogs and trains them for the many tasks they perform while on duty. Meet Rex, Clipper, Maci, Iva, Ikar, and other MWDs who have served the US military in conflicts around the world.

Two soccer players collide on the field. A soldier in Afghanistan is thrown to the ground during a bomb explosion. A teen has an accident while riding her bike—and she isn't wearing her helmet. Each of these incidents can produce a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Of the 1.7 million Americans officially diagnosed with TBI each year, 52,000 die from their injuries. And that doesn't count all the unreported TBIs, which experts estimate range from about two to four million more incidents. TBIs range from concussions to penetrating head injuries to life-threatening brain swelling and coma. And they have countless causes: war, sports, car and motorcycle accidents, falls, and physical violence. The aftereffects can be devastating, including compromised memory and concentration, loss of hearing, physical disabilities, depression, brain disorders, and, in the worst-case scenario, death. Find out about the different types of TBIs, what causes them, and how they are diagnosed and treated. Along the way, you'll learn about National Hockey League player Derek Boogaard and U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, both of whom sustained TBIs, with dramatically different outcomes. You'll also meet teens and young adults living with TBIs and the doctors who treat them. And you'll learn about amazing medical technologies that help victims recover and promise hope for the future.