STUBBORN TWIG: Three Generations in the Life...

STUBBORN TWIG: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family by Lauren Kessler (Plume/Penguin: $12.95; 347 pp., illustrated). Masuo Yasui settled in Hood River, Ore., in 1908, attracted by the opportunities the fertile land offered. Fluent in both Japanese and English, he quickly became an important and wealthy figure within the community. But Hood River was also a center of xenophobia: Yasui, his children and grandchildren fought the anti-Asian prejudice that culminated in the relocation of Japanese-Americans in 1942. Ironically, Yasui’s prominence made him doubly suspect, and his internment shattered his dreams, his nascent agricultural empire and his family ties.