Like Friends, Like Foes

Russell, Andrew B. Like Friends, Like Foes: Japanese Americans and Nevada Through World War II. University of Nevada Press, 2026.

Reason read: This was a selection from the Early Review Program for LibraryThing.

If Nancy Pearl were to update her Book Lust chapter called “Companion Reads” I would want her to add Like Friends, Like Foes: Japanese Americans and Nevada Through World War II to be read with the government document WRA: a Story of Human Conservation. While WRA is a no-nonsense report of the internment of West Coast Japanese-Americans during World War II (and riddled with errors), Russell begins his nonfiction with the arrival of the first Nikkei in Nevada in 1900. Writing in a warm and approachable style, Russell moves through history documenting Japanese contributions to mining, farming, and the expansion of the railroad and ends with the onset of paranoia and prejudice during World War II. Unlike WRA, Russell offers extensive personal perspectives by including carefully researched interviews, journals, letters and photographs of four decades of Japanese Americans in Nevada. His obvious respect for his subject matter is readily apparent from the very first chapter. Hopefully, Russell will keep writing about this topic.
The genesis for Like Friends, Like Foes was Russell’s masters thesis “Hearts of Gold and Hostile Times: Wartime Reactions to the “Japanese Question in Churchill County Nevada” and is part of the Wilbur S. Shepperson Series in Nevada History.