ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses a series of reports from the field for Ushio, a Japanese monthly journal, between July 1977 and September 1978, under the title "The Saga of Hibakusha in America." The media and the public at large remain largely oblivious to the fact that thousands of Americans were killed and hundreds of other Americans were left with physical and psychic scars from the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The refusal to countenance the historical fact and admit it into the "story" of the atomic bombs can be traced, in part, to the fact that the American victims of the bombs were Japanese Americans. Any historical fact that diminishes the presentation of the atomic bomb as liberator from the war represents an uncomfortable reality that is difficult to reconcile.
