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Major groups or tribes of Native Americans in the Puget Sound region include the Suquamish, Duwamish, Nisqually, Snoqualmie, and Muckleshoot (Ilalko Amish, Stuckamish, and Skopamish).” (History.org)
“Ishmael's grandfather had been a Highland Presbyterian, his grandmother an Irish zealot from the bogs above Lough Ree; they met in Seattle five years before the Great Fire, wed, and raised six sons. Arthur, the youngest, was the only one to remain on Puget Sound.” (Guterson) -
“In 1775, Spanish explorer Captain Bruno Heceta landed on the coast of Washington… Soon other European explorers arrived including British Captains James Cook in 1778 and George Vancouver in 1792” (ducksters)
“Settlers arrived--mostly wayward souls and eccentrics who had meandered off the Oregon Trail. … by Canadian Englishmen up in arms about the border--but San Piedro Island generally lay clear of violence after that” (Guterson) -
“The law said they could not own land unless they became citizens so long they were Japanese.” (Guterson)
“Alien land laws were a series of legislative attempts to discourage Asian and other “non-desirable” immigrants from settling permanently in U.S. states and territories by limiting their ability to own land and property” (Wikipedia)
Guterson explains what land laws are and how they were wrong by encouraging prejudice against Japanese American citizens. -
“Defense leaders, taking the attitude that "anything can happen," warned islanders to be on the alert. ... Meanwhile, members of the island's Japanese community pledged their loyalty to the United States.” (Guterson) -
“"The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never again escape from it," (PBS)
"It was all propaganda...They wanted us to be able to kill them with no remorse, to make them less than people.."(Guterson 345) -
No two innocent-sounding words can crush a troop’s morale quite like “Dear John.” In the military lexicon, a “Dear John” letter is a cute letter sent by a troop’s lady back home that lets him know she’s gone. These letters typically start with incoherent ramblings about how they miss their “John” before ultimately saying they’re moving on. “I don’t love you, Ishmael. I can think of no more honest way to say it. From the very beginning, when ...” -
“The Pearl Harbor National Memorial and its partners preserve, interpret, and commemorate the history of World War II in the Pacific from the events leading to the December 7, 1941, attack on Oahu, to peace and reconciliation”.
“The counsel for the state has proceeded on the assumption that you will be open , ladies and gentlemen, to an argument based on prejudice... He is counting on you to act on passions best left to a war of ten years ago." (Guterson 424) -
“An army truck took Fujiko and her five daughters to the Amity Harbor ferry dock at seven o'clock on Monday morning, where a soldier gave them tags for their suitcases and coats. They waited among their bags in the cold” (Guterson)
“From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, would be incarcerated in isolated camps.” (History.com) -
In the Battle of Tarawa (November 20-23, 1943) during World War II (1939-45), the U.S. began its Central Pacific Campaign against Japan by seizing the heavily fortified, Japanese-held island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. The 18,000 U.S. Marines sent to tiny Betio were expected to easily secure it; however, problems quickly arose. Low tides prevented some U.S. landing crafts from clearing the coral reefs that ringed the island. -
The Battle of Okinawa (April 1, 1945-June 22, 1945) was the last major battle of World War II, and one of the bloodiest. On April 1, 1945—Easter Sunday—the Navy’s Fifth Fleet and more than 180,000 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps troops descended on the Pacific island of Okinawa for a final push towards Japan.
“ “Carl Heine, a man who had endured the sinking of the Canton and who, like Horace himself, had survived Okinawa only to die” (Guterson 76)