Kenji Wants Out - 1

Gay Love and Japanese Internment

By: Richard Podnar

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

People said it couldn't possibly have happened here. Many refuse to believe it to this day.

The fact is, though, that concentration camps existed within the borders of the United States. Designed for mandatory resettlement of persons of Japanese descent, Executive Order 9066 signed by President Franklin Roosevelt was ostensibly designed to protect them from the overwhelming hysteria which permeated the West Coast after the attack on Pearl Harbor and U.S. involvement in World War II. What it ultimately did was destroy family life, exclude an entire community of largely law-abiding American citizens, and ignore issues of redress for years after the conflict ended.

For two young men on opposite sides of the relocation order, it is devastating. Kenji Nakamura and Jordan Applegate grapple with issues of war, hate, mistrust and turmoil that confront them. Can their deep love for one another survive?

The reader will soon discover that the players in this drama "want out" in so many aspects of their lives and struggles. What begins as innocent infatuation between two boys of strikingly different backgrounds has the chance to grow stronger despite the enormous pressures to conform and shun the forbidden pleasures they have come to enjoy.

This is a different kind of "coming-of-age" story, set against a turbulent time in American history. The reader will not fail to reflect on Kenji and Jordan long after the final words are written about them, their families and their destiny.

KENJI WANTS OUT - 2 is a continuation of the Nakamura and Applegate families' experiences as the internment period intensifies, eventually fizzles and wartime ends. Many of the challenges the former internees face are more daunting than those they encountered at the beginning of the conflict. Books 1 and 2 may be read independent of each other.