Gaman is a word that means strength in Japanese within the silence there is no yellow peril only the courage to be. Kenichi Yabusaki (Ken) was born a prisoner of war in an American concentration camp in Minidoka, Idaho. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942, some 120,000 people of Japanese descent, primarily on the West Coast, were forced into ten main concentration camps across the continental US with no due process. The demoralizing effects of that horror in American history remained with those who survived, Ken tells how it affected the lives of his grandparents, his parents, his sister, and himself. Ken tells how he fought the misguided racism of “yellow peril” using the Japanese practice of gaman (silently enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity) and shō ga nai (referring to something that can’t be helped, it’s out of one’s control)—powerful words filled with meaning, perseverance, and resilience—as his sword and shield.

This book is about what Ken Yabusaki did with the war that never ended, how he met the love of his life, served his country in the Army during the Vietnam War, raised a family, became an accomplished biochemist, advocated for civil rights, and found nature within himself through fly-fishing. Today, Minidoka, where Ken was born, is a national historical site and like the other main concentration camps is a testament to what racism, fear, war hysteria, political motives, and unchecked power did to innocent Americans. Although Minidoka was about perpetrators and victims, it provided an opportunity to survive oppression. It opened the doors to Ken’s coming of age, growing up on Jackson Street in Seattle, experiencing the deaths of family members, and learning about an unknown sister. His parents were people of few words but understood that holding grudges killed the human spirit. They lived what sages often say, “It’s not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.”