Today we revisit our conversation with Judy Kawamoto, winner of the 2022 Evans Handcart Award from the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Utah State University, for her book Forced Out: A Nikkei Woman's Search for a Home in America.
Of the roughly 120,000 people forced from their homes by Executive Order 9066, around 5,000 were able to escape incarceration beforehand by fleeing inland. In her book, Judy Kawamoto offers insight into “voluntary evacuation,” a little-known Japanese American experience during World War II, and she addresses her personal and often unconscious reactions to her parents’ trauma, as well as her own subsequent travels around much of the world, exploring, learning, enjoying, but also unconsciously acting out a continual search for a home.
Judy Y. Kawamoto is a retired psychotherapist. Her experience with the University of Colorado's Asian American Educational Opportunity Program led her to specialize in clinical social work in higher education. She has held positions in that capacity at various institutions, including University of California, Berkeley; Southern Oregon University; and City College of San Francisco, where she focused on exposing students of color to the benefits of therapy and encouraging them to participate.
