Although the Heart Mountain Eagles are at the figurative center of this book, sports fans seeking football history will find themselves searching for even the mention of a ball within the first half. Contrary to what the title implies, the football team is a secondary focus. However, when the sports writing does pop up, it is nothing short of glorious ... Using meticulous research and a whole lot of heart, Pearson gives a devastatingly powerful history of Japanese American internment and demonstrates its absurdity with the tale of an undeniably all-American football team ... Though there is not as much football as the title seems to promise, this is an inspired and necessary work of history.
... an engrossing and accomplished debut work of nonfiction ... Bradford Pearson shines light on a little-known chapter of World War II resistance on the homefront. He sets the stage by confronting the inaccurate vocabulary used to describe the forcible relocation of 120,000 people of Japanese descent in the 1940s, rejecting the commonly used 'internment' in favor of the more accurate term 'incarceration.' ... Based on meticulous archival research and interviews with surviving family members, Pearson’s narrative provides the political context for the incarceration of Japanese civilians while bringing readers into the lives of several of the teens who came of age in the camp ... Pearson’s tale goes beyond a simple feel-good sports story to encompass the complex political and racial justice issues of the time ... an inspiring exploration of resistance and a timely examination of how the policy of Japanese incarceration impacted the lives of young people and their families.
Pearson tells the moving story of the Heart Mountain Eagles, a high school football team organized at the camp. In telling the story of the team and the internment camp itself, Pearson describes ongoing fear, racism, and discrimination, especially as surrounding rural, white communities in Wyoming refused to play against the team ... This well-written and researched book will strongly appeal to those interested in U.S. history and civil rights.
... Bradford Pearson has uncovered an absolutely stirring story in his rigorous and important, though flawed, new book, The Eagles of Heart Mountain ... Pearson wisely wants to situate the Eagles within the broader context of anti-Japanese racism before and during the war. The problem is that the context crowds out the primary story line. Though a reader meets Nomura and Yoshinaga in the first several dozen pages of the book, and though they intermittently reappear amid the lengthy historical portions, they slide too much into the background until the riveting final third of the book. That is a long time for a book of narrative nonfiction to go without focusing on its protagonists.To his credit, Pearson has done prodigious research on the bigoted path toward incarceration ... But the sheer volume of historical background in The Eagles of Heart Mountain buries its most singular material. And, even on its own terms, the contextual chapters suffer from disorganization, looping forward and back in time in a disorienting way.
Journalist Pearson debuts with a novelistic account of sports glory at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming ... Pearson intertwines play-by-play game recaps with updates on the war’s progress, biographical sketches, and rundowns on the legal battles over internment and military draft resistance by detainees. Frequent tangents interrupt the narrative momentum, yet Pearson succeeds in unearthing a feel-good story from a dark chapter in U.S. history. The result is a worthy portrait of triumph in the face of tragedy.
A fresh look at the mass removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II ... Pearson’s narrative goes on a touch too long, but his play-by-plays read compellingly like contemporary radio scripts ... But sports take second place to social justice, and this book serves that cause well. A deep-reaching chronicle of a shameful episode in American history.
