Description
Book SynopsisThe first Japanese American jockey, Kokomo Joe burst like a comet on the American horse-racing scene in the summer of 1941. As war with Japan loomed, Yoshio ""Kokomo Joe"" Kobuki won race after race. His is a story of the American dream catapulting headlong into the nightmare of a nation gripped by wartime hysteria and xenophobia. His story is at once inspiring, deeply sad, and richly ironic.
Trade Review“Christgau masterfully unearths a story about a small man with a giant spirit struggling to realize a dream in the midst of racial hatred and war.”—Satsuki Ina, producer of
From a Silk Cocoon“John Christgau has given us the bittersweet story of ‘Kokomo Joe’ Kobuki, who carried the American dream on his tiny shoulders, and of those whose fear of others tried to wrest the dream from him.”—Stephen Fox, author of
Fear Itself: Inside the FBI Roundup of German Americans during World War II"Through his detailed writing Christgau makes Kokomo Joe's rise representative of the rise of Japanese America."—Kerwin Berk,
Nichi Bei TimesTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
1. The Pocket Baby
2. Kokomo Joe
3. Mister Charley
4. Brilliant Queen
5. The Yankee Doodle Boys
6. Joltin' Joe
7. The Railbird Witch
8. The Oriental Invaders
9. Lumberjacks and Truckers
10. Joe Btfsplk
11. Miserable Saboteurs
12. Nipponese Dynamite
13. Hoover's Lists
14. Fibber McGee
15. The Whiz Kid with the Jive Drive
16. The Canadian Mounties
17. Chester from Gunsmoke
18. Stargazers
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