Welcome back to New Day Northwe.
A new graphic novel is taking a look at
life in Seattle during the World War 2 era.
We Are Not Strangers is author h
Tuna Ega's debut graphic novel.
And it takes a surprise
look at the relationship,
a surprising relationship betwea
Jewish family and a Japanese fa.
And Josh joins me now.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us.
It seems very intersectional.
What inspired you to tell
this specific story and why?
At the time,
was a close relationship between
a Japanese family and a Jewish
family so surprising.
Yeah, so this story started wita
story that my uncle told me abot
attending his grandfather's fun.
And it was a typical Jewish evet
until a handful of Japanese Amen
guest order to arrive, and noboy
knew who they were or why they .
But what my uncle found out is that his
grandfather had helped these families
when they were forced out of the
neighborhood and incarcerated during the war.
So his story only took a
couple minutes to tell,
but I just couldn't stop thinking about it.
You know, how does a Jewish
immigrant from with the,
you know, family overseas,
still threatened by the Holocau,
end up helping his Japanese
American neighbor at home?
So
beautiful. What a beautiful sto.
It's about the environment that kind of
creates that remarkable relationship.
So Speaking of beauty, your artc
style is absolutely beautiful.
Tell us we've got some of the
images from the book we're
going to show right now as well.
Let's talk about your artistic style.
Oh, okay. Well, it's been develg
my whole life. I don't know.
Yeah. I mean, I've been drawing
since I was a little kid.
And yeah, I just, I think a lotf
this style and these images kinf
come from a lot of the research I did.
You know, looking at old pictures from
the past and talking to historians and
stuff like that and getting get,
you know, research inspiration.
I think. I think, you know,
it's traditional comic book sty,
which we've seen graphic novels,
but I think it's the eyes,
it's how you draw the eyes that you can
see really a lot of the emotion in them,
which I think is is really beautiful.
So help us understand what the
Seattle areas you write about we
like during the wartime period.
I know you mentioned a little bt
about your grandfather's friend story,
but tell us kind of what else
we might experience here.
Well, this project is set in the
Central District, and that was a place.
Well, it was where my family,
Jewish immigrants from the Mediterranean,
settled when they came to Ameri.
And it was a place that immigrants and
minorities who were blocked from living
elsewhere would kind of call their home.
So it was like a place where all these
different cultures were jammed up against
each other and could get to know each other,
neighbors and friends.
So I think that that's where a t
of the stories that are similar,
you know, my grandfather,
my uncle's story happened because there
was all these cultures living together.
So that's kind of what I highlighted,
all these different stories togr
in oral histories to create thi,
this beautiful historical ficti.
Yeah, yeah.
That's
really, really neat.
So what kind of research
did you do for the book?
I mean, you, you heard the stor,
but did you actually have
to kind of find out,
like specific places and things?
Yeah. I mean, when I heard the story,
I was starting from scratch.
I didn't learn. I hadn't learned much
of this when I was a kid, you k?
I mean, did this. Yeah.
So, yeah, I had to get a lot of
help started with historians at
University of Washington to help out.
And then densho.org is a like,
incarceration arcade based in Seattle.
They were a big resource.
But honestly, just face to face
interviews with people I got tot
people whose families were help,
you know, at the time.
And yeah, like people were helped by,
you know, renting out their hom.
That's the story of my grandpa
or my uncle's story.
His grandfather rented out their
family's homes and so they had a place
to come home to when they got b,
which was really, really rare.
And then people, you know,
helped by storing possessions fr
people or keeping businesses af,
stuff like that.
So all these stories I would
learn about and then, you know,
sometimes I'd just be able to le
interject a little something in a panel.
And then sometimes they'd be li,
oh,
this is going to be a whole
new chapter or whatever.
So it just grew from there.
I
think that's so beautiful becau,
you know, you're right, We don't learn.
We don't actually learn the stos
of our own area at these times.
We've learned a little bit.
But I think it's amazing.
So on top of talking to the professors
and and talking to historians ad
using the resources available to you,
what was their process for
creating this graphic novel?
Well, my process was
evolving overtime I'd say.
I think it's like, I mean,
it's probably just research,
writing, storyboarding, drawing,
and then rinse and repeat.
Just kind of you say it.
So, like, it's so casual. I mea,
I can, I wish I could do that.
I mean, that's really amazing.
Well, thanks. I mean, yeah,
I've just been doing it forever,
so it doesn't. Yeah. I mean,
the writing and research was new for me.
That was the biggest challenge for me. So
before I let you go, what do you
hope people learn from this sto?
You know, for me the biggest take away
is that I think nowadays we're kind of
almost like encouraged to look at each
other as strangers in a lot of ,
so divided and stuff.
So I hope this story is a reminder that
doesn't necessarily have to be that way.
You know, so I live in kind of a rural
area wherever not everybody in y
community sees I die and everyt,
but I find that if I reach
out list and help out,
I can always find common ground on something.
And I think that's like
super powerful.
So I could not agree with you m.
Thank you so much for sharing this with
us and for sharing this with everyone.
Of course, please go check out
the book We Are Not Strangers
based on the true story.