The Celestials’ Last Game

One of my favorite parts of The Celestials’ Last Game, Season One of this podcast, was the post-game press conference episode, where I got to address some listener questions and responses, continue developing my own perspective and ideas, and keep the conversation going in all the best ways. Y’all knew I couldn’t resist the chance to do so again!

The story didn’t end when the games did, and neither will ours. Japanese American baseball, activism, and community continued into the months, years, and decades after the incarceration camps closed—and through engaging with a few of those evolving stories, we can likewise continue to model what we can and must learn from these histories and their legacies alike for our own moment and ongoing work...

We’ve almost arrived at the conclusion of our game. But before we do, let’s take a literary excursion into talented authors and compelling works that remind us of the presence and power of stories and images in what and how we remember, and of what metaphorical meanings we can make of such shared stories from both the period of Japanese incarceration and our own fraught moment.

There are many ways to better remember compelling sports stories and crucial American histories like Japanese American baseball in the incarceration camps, and we’ve moved through a number of them already this season. But there’s nothing quite like the game itself—and engaging with a handful of iconic baseball games and their multilayered contexts and connections can also help us think and talk ab...

Baseball is very much a team sport, but iconic individual players still stand out—not only for what they can contribute on the field, but also and especially for the symbolic stories and compelling histories they can help us remember. That was potently and inspiringly the case for Japanese American players in incarceration camps, from three brothers to a father and his two sons to a trio of Major...

Two of America’s most prominent early 20th century photographers visited Manzanar, on distinct and equally fraught missions that nonetheless produced a number of striking images, including of baseball at the camp. Another of the era’s most talented photographers was incarcerated there, using a smuggled and homemade camera to document the camp’s community and resist its worst realities. All legacie...

In the most isolated and desolate settings, amidst inhumane and horrific conditions, baseball flourished. It did so thanks to the individual and collective efforts of all those who built, maintained, used, and shared the fields and stadiums, formed the teams and leagues, played and cheered on the games, that extended and deepened the legacy of Japanese American baseball. And in the process, baseba...

As immediate assembly centers gave way to long-term incarceration camps, the genuine and horrific realities of the incarceration system became clearer still—but so did the ways in which the incarcerated communities would resist, challenge, and even change those conditions. An evolving and multilayered story that has been powerfully echoed and extended in our own fraught and fragile moment.

Proposals for the unlawful detention of entire American communities that use softened language yet cannot mask their extreme and prejudicial ideas. The painful and destructive systems of incarceration that these policies produce on the ground. And the impressive ways that communities and their allies resist and challenge those policies and realities alike. All stories from 1942 that sound eerily f...

From the late 19th century arrivals of baseball in Japan and Japanese immigrants in Hawaii, through the heyday of Japanese American teams and leagues in the 1920s and 30s, and right up to fraught moments and games as everything changed in 1941 and 42, the evolving stories of baseball and Japanese Americans were profoundly interconnected. And those links reflect just how fully the sport has through...

The game has changed, and so has this podcast.

Diamond in the Rough: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for America, Season 2.

Just one more thing--or, rather, just a handful more questions about the Celestials' Last Game!

Before we record the last out, we need to trace where our protagonists and our nation went in the decades following the final game--and all that they represent and remind us of in our histories and our present alike.

The Celestials' exile, just after their triumphant last game, was only one of many lingering losses and tragedies for Chinese Americans in the Exclusion era. Yet in the same period, young Chinese Americans and their allies, including a Chinese Educational Mission alum, fought for and won vital victories that helped guarantee Constitutional rights for all Americans.

A climactic triumph. An inescapable tragedy. It has all led to this, for the Celestials, for our story, and for us. 

A transcontinental train trip. An ambiguous athletic challenge. An exhibition game that exemplifies so much of the Celestials, the Chinese Educational Mission, the Exclusion Era, and the battle for America. 

The Chinese Exclusion Act and its many horrific predecessors and aftermaths sought to destroy existing Chinese American families and communities--including the Chinese Educational Mission and its Celestials baseball team.

19th century San Francisco was one of the most diverse cities in the most multi-racial state in the expanding US--but it was also home to a new political party that linked labor activism to anti-Chinese racism and exclusion.

We're almost to play ball!

The rise of baseball in the 19th century is one of the great American stories, and we can't tell it without including the successful semi-pro squad the Celestials.

Denis Kearney's experience as an immigrant, labor leader, and anti-Chinese activist exemplifies the tragic ironies of 19th century Irish American histories.

Yung Wing's inspiring story, the founding of the Chinese Educational Mission and its baseball team, and the era of exclusion.

A tragic yet triumphant 1881 baseball game and the battle for America.