Hello AACP Newsletter Readers.

I was hoping to get this newsletter out sooner, but we had a busy month filled with events. Right now, we’re in the middle of a two week stretch where we are going to three events. We just finished a three day conference and now I have to finish this newsletter so I can prepare for the last of the three events. When we’re done with this last event, we would have gone to four events in 29 days and traveled over 450 miles (this is not counting the miles each individual volunteer spent getting to the events).

As a result, we only completed one article for this newsletter. Sorry about that.

The one article we do have is a glimpse into some of what we experienced at this year’s California Council for the Social Studies Conference in Santa Clara. If you were one of the attendees I wrote about, I hope I accurately retold our encounter together. There were many interesting conversations and experiences we had, too many for this article.

Much time was also spent in researching and purchasing books, making sure the books were in our database, packing them for the events, putting them on display, packing them back up, bringing them back to the store, counting the books, and then finally reshelving them right before we began the whole process for the next event.

After the Redwood City Lunar New Celebration, I also had to account for the damaged books that got wet from the rain.

If this all sounds like I’m complaining or making excuses, sorry, I got carried away. I was just recalling what had transpired during the last few weeks and can’t quite believe it.

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Okay, on with the editor’s message.

For our book selection this month, we have ten Internment related books. I was hoping to get this newsletter out before the 81st Anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 (which happened on Feb. 19, 1942, resulting in the Incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans and people of Japanese descent living in the Western coastal states of the US).

One of the books, “When the Emperor Was Divine,” is an old book featured here because it was recently rejected by the Muskego School District in Wisconsin. If you haven’t read the book already, get this book, read it, and let the Muskego School District know what you think.

“Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II” is another older book, but is new in paperback. It’s really interesting to see these color photos.

Other books from our featured books selection include – “I Love You Because I Love You” by Mượn Thị Văn is a wonderful picture book about love and features a diverse group of families across the spectrum.

“Norooz a Celebration of Spring! The Persian New Year” is in time for this year’s celebration which takes place on March 20th. Get this book and learn about this celebration that is not only celebrated in Iran, but also parts of Central Asia and India.

Cecilia Brainard has completed “Growing Up Filipino 3: New Stories for Young Adults” the third book in this critically acclaimed series of short story collections written by various Filipino authors.

That’s all the time I have to highlight a few of our featured books. As always, please check out the others too.

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Book List on Our Bookshop.org Site

We created a special book list of Internment related books for the San Jose Day of Remembrance event. This list contains approximately 86% of the books brought to the event, but is not a comprehensive list of all the books that are available on the Internment. In the future, we hope to add to this list.

We will hopefully create a list of books brought to the CCSS Conference and then post that also on our Bookshop.org page. Please return to that page if it was not posted yet when you last looked.

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Thanks to the donors that contributed to our CCSS Conference drive – especially Frances and Jaeheon. You’re donations really made a difference.

Thanks to David and all the other volunteers that have helped us this month. And a special thank you to one of our founders, Rosie Shimonishi and her husband Warren, for dropping by the San Jose Day of Remembrance event to say hi and to help me pack up. It was great seeing you two in-person.

If you’re near the San Joaquin County Historical Museum in Lodi this coming Sunday, drop by for their Lunar New Year Celebration and check out our book display and sale.

Have a wonderful and safe March everyone.

Bye.