Edokko: Growing Up A Foreigner In Wartime Japan

Synopsis

"Edokko is an inspiring work by one of America's great attorneys and international thinkers and ... a moving coming-of-age story ..."
-David A. Andelman, Editor, World Policy Journal

"... a powerful testament to grace of humanity in its most brilliant and glorious manifestation."
-Da Chen, Author of the bestselling memoir, Colours of the Mountain, and the novel, Brothers

Constantine and Lydia Shapiro, both professional musicians, met in Berlin and fell in love after their families fled from war, revolution, and anti-Semitism in early twentieth-century Russia. In Hitler's Germany, they again faced persecution. Realizing the danger of remaining in Europe, they continued their odyssey, first to Palestine, and ultimately to the relative safety of China and Japan.

In Tokyo in 1931, their fourth son, Isaac, was born. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the sudden onset of World War II, the family's life was disrupted once again. They moved from city to city in war-torn Japan, surviving privations and the bombing of Japan by the United States.

During the subsequent American occupation of Japan, fourteen-year-old Isaac was hired to be an interpreter by a U.S. Marine Colonel from far-off Arkansas. Colonel (later Lieutenant General) John Calvin "Toby" Munn gave Isaac ("Ike") the opportunity to immigrate to America. Isaac landed in Hawaii in the summer of 1946, completely altering the course of his life.