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Title: A lead balloon
Review: As a child we lived in the Yakima Valley. Some summer afternoons my father would take me with him to buy vegetables from a Japanese farmer. My father, normally outgoing, was reserved and deferrential. Dad explained that the farmer before the war had been a successful engineer, but had lost everything when he was forced to go to "the camp" - a tragedy and great waste. I've been haunted by that guiet farmer ever since, so it was with enthusiasm that I began Stubborn Twig, the story of a Japanese family's American experience.Stubborn Twig is well researched and chock full of details about the Yasui family. Reading their story should be compelling. It's not. It's repetitious, tedious and a slow, difficult read. The last 50 pages, the third generation, is a mix of biography and sociologist psycho babble. So why read Stubborn Twig? Because it's an important story, an American story that has much to teach us, and one that shouldn't be forgotten.
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