ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question:  Where in Seattle does this story take place?

Josh Tuininga is an author, artist, and designer living in North Bend, Washington. After studying fine art at the Art Institute of Chicago, he founded an art and design agency, where he continues to work as its creative director. His work has been published in Communication Arts magazine and HOW Design magazine, and he received the Communication Arts Award for excellence in illustration. Tuininga is the author of the children’s books Why Blue? and Dream On.

We Are Not Strangers, which has been awarded a 4Culture Heritage Grant, is his first graphic novel.  Based on a true story, it depicts the relationship between Sephardic Jews and their Japanese American neighbors living in Seattle during World War II. At that time nearly all Japanese Americans and residents of Japanese ancestry were sent to internment camps and this book describes one Jewish immigrant’s efforts to help his Japanese neighbors while they are incarcerated.

The book includes notes and a list of sources, as well as a glossary explaining historical references, and an Educator’s Guide is also available.

The Introduction is by award-winning author Ken Mochizuki, and the Afterword is by Devin Naar, Chair of the Sephardic Studies Program at the University of Washington in Seattle.  (We did two programs with Prof. Naar about the history and culture of Sephardic Jews in the United States, which you can hear by clicking on the links below.)

This week we are speaking with Josh about We Are Not Strangers and the history behind it.

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English Corner Programs with Devin Naar about Sephardic Jews in the US: History; Culture and Language

You can find out more about the Japanese incarceration during WWII here.