Dentistry professor took leave of absence to write book on Japanese couple in World War II

Book Cover

The University of Washington Press has recently published Imprisoned Apart: The World War II Correspondence of an Issei Couple by Dr. Louis Fiset, affiliate associate professor of dentistry.

Fiset, who was a clinician at the School of Dentistry's Dental Fears Research Clinic before taking a leave of absence to write the first draft of the book, will read from the work on Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 7 p.m. at the University Bookstore in the University District.

The book centers on more than 200 letters, now in the UW archives, exchanged between Iwao Matsushita and his wife Hanaye while they were incarcerated separately during World War II. Iwao Matsushita had a lengthy association with the UW, where he was employed before and after the war. He taught the first Japanese language course on the UW campus and later became a subject specialist in the Far East Library. During his internment, UW faculty repeatedly petitioned federal and state authorities for his release.

Fiset noted that he became interested in the set of letters while he was researching wartime postal censorship. He was intrigued enough by the few letters that had been written in English (usually to meet censors' demands) that he arranged for translation of all the letters written in Japanese. "I found I was really drawn into this story by my compassion for their situation and a desire to learn more about them," he said.

Fiset also did considerable research on the Matsushita family and on the Japanese community in Seattle both before and after the war. The first section of the book consists of sections explaining how they came to Seattle and lived before the war broke out, setting the stage for the letters written when they were incarcerated. There are also numerous photos of the couple and photos of the Northwest taken by Iwao Matsushita, an award-winning photographer.

Feb. 19, 1998 will be the 10th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided compensation for surviving Japanese Americans interned during World War II. Feb. 19 is also the date in 1942 on which President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 that put in motion the incarceration of Japanese Americans.

The UW Press has published the book as part of the Scott and Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies.

"Certainly, scholars of World War II history and the Japanese American experience will be interested in the book," Fiset said. "But my hope is that this story of people who have to cope with a very stressful situation will appeal to many others, too." ¶ Claire Dietz