Portland's Japantown Revealed

Winner of Best Textbook award - 2015. “Portland’s Japantown Revealed” uses photographs, video interviews and rarely seen historic artifacts to tell the story of a vibrant Japanese American community in Portland Oregon that disappeared with the forced removal and incarceration of its citizens. While the focus is on one American community, the book illustrates a great injustice in American history rooted in race prejudice and WWII hysteria.


The book features unique interactive photographs that allows the reader to uncover historic images beneath contemporary photographs with a swipe of the finger. It’s a startling effect that “paints” historic residents of Japantown into contemporary settings. 


Video interviews with former Japantown residents bring the story to life - a Japanese American man recalls the days after Pearl Harbor “... we just didn't know what was going to happen to us. Were they going to shoot us, or are they going to send us all to Japan, and we can't even speak Japanese properly.” 


The book traces Portland’s Japantown from the 1890s to the post WWII years. Relive the shock of the Pearl Harbor attack and subsequent rise of anti-Japanese rhetoric, such as the infamous guide “How to Spot a Jap.” First hand accounts tell the story of the forced removal and incarceration of Japantown residents to a detention center in a former livestock pen on the outskirts of Portland. “... our constant companion was the smell of manure and the millions of flies.” Experience the struggles of Japanese Americans to rebuild their lives after the war.


"Portland’s Japantown Revealed" is an enhanced, multi-touch book written by Peter Pappas, a well-known instructional designer, teacher and educational blogger. He is the author of three WWII Homefront books and resides near what was once Japantown, Portland Ore.