Revolutionizing Japanese American Literature for Young Adults: A Review of WE HEREBY REFUSE: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration

In this review of WE HEREBY REFUSE: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration, by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura, the author describes how this dynamic graphic novel provides multiple avenues for literacy educators to encourage young adults from diverse backgrounds to engage in their own forms of criticality (Mohammed, 2019) to analyze the causes and consequences of racial injustice over time. The descendants of incarcerated Japanese Americans, Abe and Nimura provide authentic reenactments of the World War II era through the narrative experiences of three Japanese American resisters, Hajime Jim Akutsu, Hiroshi Kashiwagi, and Mitsuye Endo. Sample pedagogical strategies connected to the text are offered for equity‐conscious literacy educators who seek to inspire their diverse learners to apply skills in criticality to directly challenge the status quo, and also, to comparatively situate how racialized violence against Asian Americans has evolved from the 1940s to the present.