At the time of its initial publication in 1953, Nisei Daughter was one of the only notable memoirs written from a Japanese American perspective. Critics were generally favorable in their discussion of the book. A reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, quoted on the cover of the reprint edition, enthuses "The deepest impression this unaffected, honest little story made on me was one of smiling courage." In "American Uses of Japanese American Memory: How Internment Narratives are 'Put into Discourse,' " Brian Lain quotes Georgianne Sampson's review for the New York Herald Tribune, which calls the book "warmly affecting and entertaining," and notes that it seems to be "composed more with love than with protest."

Still, the book is not without its faults. A reviewer for Newsweek writes that "the book has an unfinished air" and suggests that "it does not do justice to the Japanese or...