Coming July 8, 2025!
On a late March morning in the spring of 1942, Elaine Buchman Yoneda awoke to a series of terrible choices: between her family and freedom, her country and conscience, and her son and daughter.
Born to Russian Jewish immigrants, Elaine was now married to a Japanese American man. But on this war-torn morning she was also a mother desperate to keep her young mixed-race son from being sent to Manzanar, the US concentration camp near Death Valley. The detention center was one of ten where our government would eventually imprison every person of Japanese descent along the entire West Coast—alien and citizen, old and young, healthy and sick—or in the words of one official, anyone with even “one drop” of Japanese blood.
Elaine’s husband Karl was already in Manzanar, but he planned to enlist as soon as the US Army agreed to send him to war. He was committed to fighting for that to which he and Elaine, prominent labor and antifascist activists, had long devoted their lives: equality, freedom, and democracy.
Yet when Karl went to war, their son Tommy, three years old and chronically ill, would be left alone in Manzanar—unless Elaine convinced the US government to imprison her as well.
The consequences of Elaine’s choice did not end there: if she somehow found a way to force herself behind barbed wire with her husband and son, she would have to abandon her white daughter from a previous marriage.
Together in Manzanar tells the story of these fraught choices and conflicting loyalties, the upheaval and violence they engendered, and the Yonedas’ quest to survive with their children's lives intact and their family safe and whole.
Coming July 8, 2025, from Chigao Review Press.
Pre-order online now directly from the publisher, online from IndieBound or Amazon, or at all major bookstores!
Get in touch for updates about the release of Together in Manzanar and other upcoming news!
Tracy’s Mixed-Marriage Memoir
Advanced praise:
“Both fastidiously researched and a page-turner”;
“You absolutely won't be able to put this one down”;
“Tracy Slater has done her homework and is uniquely positioned to tell the story of Elaine Black Yoneda, an eyewitness to one of the most explosive parts of the wartime Japanese American experience. With dramatic flair, she captures the untold story of a high-profile mixed-race couple inside an American concentration camp at a pivotal moment in history.”— Frank Abe, coeditor of The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration (Penguin Classics)
“One of 27 Jewish books we’re excited about in 2025…You absolutely won’t be able to put this one down”— Hey Alma
“As society evolves and new issues and debates come to the forefront, previously neglected but newly relevant lessons and stories continue to be drawn from the exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Drawing on her own experience, Tracy Slater has found such a story, one that promises to expand our knowledge of the general incarceration and that will have specific relevance for many modern American families. . . . Both fastidiously researched and a page-turner, this book will appeal to both those new to the story and those who know it well.” — Brian Niiya, director of content for Densho and former curator of the Japanese American National Museum
Also in Japanese!
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