Tokyo Rose An American Patriot

Tokyo Rose / An American Patriot explores the parallel lives of World War II legend Tokyo Rose and a Japanese American woman named Iva Toguri. Trapped in Tokyo during the war and forced to broadcast on Japanese radio, Toguri nonetheless refused to renounce her U.S. citizenship and surreptitiously aided Allied POWs. Despite these patriotic actions, she foolishly identified herself to the press after the war as Tokyo Rose. This book assembles for the first time a collection of images from American pre-war popular culture that provided impetus for the legend. It explains how the wartime situation of servicemen caused their imaginations to create the mythical femme fatale even though no Japanese announcer ever used the name Tokyo Rose. Further, in spite of the fact that there was only one rather innocuous broadcast by a woman between December 1941 and April 1942, a news correspondent with the U.S. Navy reported in April 1942 that sailors in the Pacific theater routinely listened to Tokyo Rose's propaganda. Using interviews conducted over decades, this biography also explores Toguri's character and decisions by placing her story and conviction for treason in the context of U.S. and Japanese racial views, Imperial Japan, and Cold War politics. New research findings prompt a different perspective on her sensational trial, the most expensive in U.S. history up to that time. Misguided strategy by Toguri's defense attorney and her deceptive testimony about a key event led to the jury's verdict as surely as the perjury suborned by prosecutors. In addition to updated information, this expanded edition discusses Manila Rose, another Japanese broadcaster who lived in San Francisco in 1949 a few blocks from the courthouse where the federal government prosecuted Tokyo Rose. The U.S. Army misstated Manila Rose’s name to the public when it interviewed her in 1945. As a result historians have never turned up her files because they researched this incorrect name. Close discovered the FBI investigation from 1954 in the National Archives and is the first here to reveal the full story of Manila Rose, a woman whose real life parallels that of the fictional Tokyo Rose.

"...This expanded edition contains the complete biography, from birth to death of Tokyo Rose's Philippine counterpart, Manila Rose, who disappeared after World War II. The book also proves that Tokyo Rose's widespread fame among GIs preceded English broadcasts by women on Japanese radio and offers a completely new interpretation of the circumstances of the Overt Act for which the jury convicted Toguri of treason.-- Back cover.

Tokyo Rose / An American Patriot explores the parallel lives of World War II legend Tokyo Rose and a Japanese American woman named Iva Toguri. Trapped in Tokyo during the war and forced to broadcast on Japanese radio, Toguri steadfastly refused to renounce her U.S. citizenship and surreptitiously aided Allied POWs. Despite these patriotic actions, she foolishly identified herself to the press after the war as Tokyo Rose. This book assembles a collection of images from American pre-war popular culture that provided impetus for the legend of Tokyo Rose and analyzes the wartime situation of servicemen, which caused their imaginations to create the mythical femme fatale even though no Japanese announcer ever used the name Tokyo Rose.

Tokyo Rose / An American Patriot explores the parallel lives of World War II legend Tokyo Rose and a Japanese American woman named Iva Toguri. Trapped in Tokyo during the war and forced to broadcast on Japanese radio, Toguri steadfastly refused to renounce her U.S. citizenship and surreptitiously aided Allied POWs. Despite these patriotic actions, she foolishly identified herself to the press after the war as Tokyo Rose. This book assembles a collection of images from American pre-war popular culture that provided impetus for the legend of Tokyo Rose and analyzes the wartime situation of servicemen, which caused their imaginations to create the mythical femme fatale even though no Japanese announcer ever used the name Tokyo Rose.

It is 1941, the start of Word War II. Wishing only to pursue her dreams of attending medical school at UCLA, Iva Toguri reluctantly visits her sick aunt in Japan. The start of the war traps her there. When she refuses to renounce her American citizenship, the Japanese government denies her a food ration card. Soon her mother's family evicts her, and she struggles to survive. Forced to accept a job with Radio Tokyo, she refuses to participate in propaganda broadcasts despite unending pressure by Army management. Relief comes with the war's end, but the extreme politics back in the United States and continuing racial prejudice against Japanese-Americans makes Iva a target. Mistakenly identified as Tokyo Rose, she is charged with treason, leading to a trial that grips the nation.

**2022 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year: Silver Award Winner in Graphic Novels & Comics Category** **Recommended by The New York Public Library as one of its 50 best comics for adults** **A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection** Traitor or hero? Discover the truth behind the legendary Tokyo Rose. Tokyo Rose: Zero Hour tells the true story of Iva Toguri, a Japanese American woman who was visiting her relatives in Tokyo shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Trapped in Japan, Iva refused to renounce her American citizenship. But she was forced to take a job with Radio Tokyo to host "Zero Hour," a propaganda broadcast aimed at demoralizing American troops--in the role of the infamous Tokyo Rose, "The Siren of the Pacific." The dramatic events recounted in this story include: Iva's arrest by the Americans, who eventually found that her actions were blameless Her emotional return to the United States and the racially-motivated public outcry that led to her re-arrest and prosecution for treason The dishonest actions of prosecutors who coerced witnesses into providing false evidence against her The six years she spent in prison, and her eventual pardon by President Ford in 1977 Written by Andre Frattino and illustrated by Kate Kasenow, Tokyo Rose: Zero Hour has an introduction explaining the "Tokyo Rose" phenomenon and the devastating effects of World War II on Asian-American communities that continue to reverberate. In a world rife with misinformation and racial prejudice, the story of Tokyo Rose has never been more relevant.

[A] dramatic, affecting account...—Publishers Weekly

No one knows who invented the name, when it was first used, or even why a Japanese broadcaster should be dubbed 'Rose'--but two of the first American reporters in Occupied Japan, bent on finding "Tokyo Rose" at any cost, elicited the name of one of the women disk-jockeys on the popular Zero Hour program. Iva Toguri d'Aquino, foolishly, unfearingly let herself be styled, "the one and only Tokyo Rose." A UCLA-graduate, she had gone to Japan reluctantly in 1941 on family business. Red tape and dwindling funds prevented her from leaving, and an Australian journalist POW recruited her for the radio program. It's a startling story that Masayo Duus has uncovered almost by accident: Iva waited on her at the Toguri family store in Chicago in 1967, and the plain person didn't fit the sensational image. Iva ubbornly clung to her U.S. citizenship when the other nisei she knew recanted--else she could not have been tried for treason. D'Aquino served six years of a ten-year sentence in federal prison. In the 1970s, Japanese Americans convinced of her innocence began a movement that led to a presidential pardon in 1977.