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Sign up todayStubborn Twig
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreStubborn Twigis the true story of immigrants making their way in a new land, a moving saga about the promise and perils of becoming an American.
Masuo Yasui arrived in America in 1903 with big dreams and empty pockets. He worked on the railroads, in a cannery, and as a houseboy before settling in Oregon to open a store, raise a large family, and become one of the area's most successful orchardists. As Masuo broke the color barrier in the local business community, his American-born children did the same in school, scouts, and sports. But their lives changed forever following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when they were forced from their homes into vast inland camps. Although shamed and broken, the Yasui family would yet endure to claim their place as Americans.
Lauren Kessler is an award-winning author and semi-fearless immersion reporter who combines lively narrative with deep research. She has explored everything from the gritty world of a maximum-security prison to the grueling world of professional ballet. She is the author of ten works of narrative nonfiction, including Raising the Barre, Clever Girl, and The Happy Bottom Riding Club. Her books have been BookSense selections, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times bestsellers, Wall Street Journal and People magazine "best" selections, Pacific Northwest Book Award winners, and Oregon Book Award winners. Her journalism has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, O Magazine, salon.com, Utne Reader, the Nation, newsweek.com, Prevention, Ladies Home Journal, and elsewhere. Kessler is an international speaker and workshop leader. She founded a writers' group for inmates of a maximum-security prison, teaches storytelling for social change to nonprofits in the U.S. and abroad, and works with traditional journalists who want to hone their storytelling skills. She blogs at laurenchronicles.com about living an engaged life. She lives in Oregon.
Christine Williams is a singer and actor based in Ashland, Oregon. Her performance credits include productions at regional theaters and on concert stages across the country and around the world, from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Barbican Centre in London to the Aspen Music Festival and the Grotowski Institute in Poland.
Reviews
“Lauren Kessler transports us to another era, accurately and vividly.”
“Remarkable…excels in its historical sweep and in Kessler’s flair for dramatic storytelling…an eye-opener.”
“Her research into each of her subject’s lives is diligent and she recounts the intimate tragedies, the determination, hard work, and family solidarity that characterized the Yasuis’ rise to affluence and success. Kessler has created a praiseworthy chronicle of the ‘process and meaning of becoming an American, of promise and prejudice in a new land.’”
“Gives a clear picture of the Japanese American experience in one rural community. By personalizing the effects of racism, Kessler provides a valuable account that belongs in most Asian American history collections.”
“This book puts human faces and emotions to the events of that period…Part sociological study, part American history, part family saga, this title will make a significant addition to any library.”
“An important and moving document of one American family’s experience.”
“A somber but illuminating reminder of the perniciousness of prejudice—and of the terrible toll it exacts.”
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