Pamela Rotner Sakamoto is an American historian and writer on Japanese and Japanese American history, best known for her 2016 book ''Midnight in Broad Daylight''. she teaches history at

Punahou School Punahou School (known as Oahu College until 1934) is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school in Honolulu, Hawaii. More than 3,700 students attend the school from kindergarten through 12th grade. The school was established by P ...

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

Early life and education

Pamela Rotner Sakamoto was born in

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, Orange and Durham County, North Carolina, Durham counties, North Carolina, United States. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 United States census, making Chapel Hill the List of municipa ...

, the son of Howard Rotner. and grew up in

Swampscott, Massachusetts Swampscott () is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located up the coast from Boston in an area known as the North Shore. The population was 15,111 as of the 2020 United States census. A former summer resort on Massachusetts ...

, where she attended Swampscott High School. She is a

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

graduate of

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

(1984) and holds a doctorate from the

Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy is the graduate school of international affairs of Tufts University, in Medford, Massachusetts. Fletcher is one of America's oldest graduate schools of international relations. As of 2017, the student bo ...

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

. Sakamoto lived in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

and

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

for seventeen years and is fluent in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Career

In 2007, Sakamoto moved to

, where she teaches history at

. she is coordinator of the Davis Democracy Initiative within the Social Studies Faculty. She also works as an expert consultant on Japan-related projects for the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust, dedicated to the documentation, study, and interpretation of the Holocaust. Opened in 1993, the museum explores the Holocaust through p ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Books

Sakamoto is the author of ''Japanese Diplomats and Jewish Refugees'' (1998), based on her dissertation. This work was among the first English-language works that investigated Japanese diplomat

Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who served as vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania. During the Second World War, Sugihara helped thousands of Jews flee Europe by issuing transit visas to them so that they could travel through Japan ...

and the role of Japanese diplomacy in saving thousands of Jewish lives on the eve of the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

. Her 2016 book ''Midnight in Broad Daylight'', a true-life story about the

Japanese-American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in ranking to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

Fukuhara family divided by

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, and the Japanese-American war hero Harry K. Fukuhara, was listed by ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...

'' as one of the best nonfiction books of 2016. This book also touches on the

internment of Japanese Americans United States home front during World War II, During World War II, the United States forcibly relocated and Internment, incarcerated about 120,000 people of Japanese Americans, Japanese descent in ten #Terminology debate, concentration camps opera ...

, life in wartime Japan, the Japanese-American

Military Intelligence Service The Military Intelligence Service (, ''America Rikugun Jōhōbu'') was a World War II U.S. military unit consisting of two branches, the Japanese American unit (described here) and the German-Austrian unit based at Camp Ritchie, best known as ...

, and the

atomic bombing of Hiroshima On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civil ...

. It takes its title from a poem by Japanese poet and peace activist

Sankichi Tōge , born Mitsuyoshi Tōge, was a Japanese poet, activist, and survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. He is best known for his collection of poems ''Genbaku Shishu'' ("Poems of the Atomic Bomb"), published in 1951. Early life and education Mit ...

Recognition

At Amherst College, Sakamoto was a Phi Beta Kappa student and a XXIV Amherst-Doshisha Fellow. She won the Pedro Grases Award for Excellence in Spanish, and the Robert L. Leeds Jr. Honor Award for Dedication to Social Programs. At the Fletcher School, she was awarded the Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship by the

Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation The Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly known as the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation) is a nonpartisan, non-profit institution based in Princeton, New Jersey that says it aims to strengthen American democracy by "cultivating ...

. ''Midnight in Broad Daylight'' garnered starred reviews in

and the

Library Journal ''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional prac ...

, and was Amazon Editors' "Best of the Month Picks" for January 2016 in both History and Nonfiction categories.

Personal life

From the age of three, she has suffered from

Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis Juvenile may refer to: In general *Juvenile status, or minor (law), prior to adulthood *Juvenile (organism) Music *Juvenile (rapper) (born 1975), stage name of American rapper Terius Gray *''Juveniles'', a 2020 studio album by the band Kingswoo ...

Bibliography

* ''Japanese Diplomats and Jewish Refugees'' (Praeger, 1998) * ''Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds'' (HarperCollins, 2016)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sakamoto, Pamela Rotner Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American historians 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers American women historians American women non-fiction writers The Fletcher School at Tufts University alumni Japanese-American history Jewish American historians Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish women writers People from Swampscott, Massachusetts