marnie mueller

1/15/24
Dear Friends, Family, and Colleagues,

 

I begin with sincere thanks to the many of you who have read, reviewed, and referred The Showgirl and the Writer: A Friendship Forged in the Aftermath of the Japanese American Incarceration to potential readers.

 

Now I come to you with a special gift in the new year.

 

Over the eight years I was writing and researching Mary's life, I was also developing a virtual archive under the auspices of Densho.org, the preeminent website on the Incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. The primary and secondary research materials have been professionally scanned, sized, and uploaded by the Densho archivists Caitlin Oiye Coon and Micah Merryman, to whom we owe a great debt for preserving this valuable historical material for all of you and future generations to access.

 

Courtesy of Mary Mon Toy's nieces, Lori Watanabe Saginaw and Wendy Watanabe, and myself, you can now view The Mary Mon Toy Theatrical Collection online.

There is still ongoing work to add to the archive, but already it holds 367 objects for viewers to access!

 

I am grateful to Brian Niiya, editor of the Densho Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia of Japanese American History, who ten years ago introduced me to the invaluable work being done by Densho to preserve the history of the Incarceration as well as the incalculable contributions made by people of Japanese descent to the Americas and worldwide.

 

The physical material, post-scanning, has now been transported to the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, Washington, where it will reside as a permanent archive. More on this in a later letter.

 

Until then, I invite you to be a part of this historic event by making a donation to Densho.org to preserve the Japanese American history of struggles, strength, and major enormous, multitudinous contributions to the United States for future scholars, families of descendants, teachers, historians, and generations of young people will know of the accomplishments of those who came before them.

 

With warm regards,
Marnie Mueller

 

When we were young, Auntie Mary loomed larger than life. We always sat cross-legged at her feet, enthralled to watch as each spidery false lash magically transformed her eyelids. …We now see the grit and resilience that Mary (Mon Toy Watanabe) needed in order to gain a professional foothold in an America embedded with prejudice against Asians and with particular hostility toward Japanese Americans after the war's end.
~ Mary Mon Toy's nieces, Lori Watanabe Saginaw and Wendy Watanabe

 

For those interested, you can learn more about the book on my website. I also welcome you to follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn. The book is available on Amazon.
 

 

10/22/23
Dear Friends, Family, and Colleagues,

 

My latest book, The Showgirl and the Writer: A Friendship Forged in the Aftermath of the Japanese American Incarceration, was published in July 2023 year by Peace Corps Writers, an Imprint of Peace Corps Worldwide. I am grateful to many of you who have read, reviewed, and referred the book to potential readers.

For others, The Showgirl and the Writer is a hybrid memoir/biography about my long friendship with Mary Mon Toy, a Nisei performer who had been forcibly removed from her home to an American concentration camp in Idaho during WWII. Our underlying bond was the incarceration of Japanese Americans; I was born in the Tule Lake Japanese American high-security camp in California, where my Caucasian parents had volunteered to work.

 

This book has been a labor of love, a personal and political journey. When I learned upon Mary's death in 2010 that she had been keeping a secret, after she was released from the camp, about her Japanese heritage for over fifty years, I decided I had to know why.

 

Thus, my extensive and complex research into her life and my own history vis a vis one of America's great crimes against democracy, the imprisonment of a people based on their race and ethnicity. The result is this book that I hope will inform readers about this shameful history through the individual experiences of two women, one a Japanese American performer and the other a Jewish-American writer. I expect you'll even be entertained along the way.

 

Mysterious, moving, and heartfelt, The Showgirl and the Writer, expands our limited knowledge of Japanese American mainstream performing artists, the lingering effects of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, as well as the impact even on non-Japanese families who tried to be allies.

~ Brian Niiya, editor of the Densho Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia of Japanese American History

 

For those interested, you can learn more about the book on my website. I also welcome you to follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn. The book is available on Amazon

With Warm Regards,
Marnie Mueller

 

Marnie Mueller combines memoir and biography in this haunting story, which intertwines two lives scarred by the shameful history of the Japanese American internment camps during World War II. Mary Mon Toy, the vivacious showgirl, has secrets that only Mueller, with her own deep connection to the same history, can slowly uncover -- secrets that lead the writer to a new understanding of her own past. A fascinating book and a brave one!

Susan Quinn, author of "Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady"
(Penguin Random House)