By Joyce Hirohata & Paul T. Hirohata, ed.

Softbound, 288 pages, 160 black and white photographs, 50 speech manuscripts of 1930s, bibliography, index.

Dimensions in inches: 10.5” x 8.5” x .65”
ISBN 0-9728149-0-6
$24.95 U.S.



*Learn about students growing up in the 1930s through oral histories and brief biographies

*160 poignant photographs bring California history alive

*Read the words spoken by 50 of the first Japanese American commencement speakers in public grammar, junior high and high schools

*Find out what happened to the students during World War II and afterward

*Includes rare 1920s-30s primary source material especially useful for teachers and librarians

Nisei Voices documents and celebrates the lives of the first Japanese American valedictorians of California public schools. Paul T. Hirohata originally published the students’ speeches in a book called Orations and Essays in the 1930s and now, seventy years later, Hirohata’s granddaughter, Joyce Hirohata, has updated and expanded the volume.

In this new edition, she documents the valedictorians’ lives and adds a collection of poignant photographs to the original 1930s material. The fifty manuscripts of the valedictorians’ orations give a rare glimpse into the hearts of Japanese Americans in the period between World Wars. Over 160 images bring to life the history of the Nisei students and their generation.

Through interviews with the valedictorians, as well as their families and friends, Nisei Voices creates a collage of the students’ lives, forged in hope but tested by the adversity of incarceration. An epic story of triumph, Nisei Voices lends a powerful, personal perspective of Japanese Americans before, during and after World War II, and the decades that followed.