Combines historical information with photographs, primary source excerpts, and first-person narratives to examine the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and its implications.

During World War Two, the United States fought mainly against Germany, Italy, and Japan. As you can imagine, any Germans, Italians, or Japanese citizens visiting or temporarily working in the United States when the war broke out, quickly found themselves feeling unwelcome. After all, they belonged to a government that was actively fighting against the country that they were in. For many of those who were temporarily in the US when war broke out, they had to decide very quickly whether to leave the country and go home or to stay and make their support for the US government clear. Some Italian-Americans and German-Americans were forced into prisons and holding areas during the war, and although it was sad what happened to them, their numbers were quite small. For that reason, in this handbook we will be focusing mainly on the huge number of Japanese-Americans who were put into special camps during the war. We will also see that unlike those who were temporarily visiting the US from enemy countries when the war broke out, the majority of those who were sent to the camps were American citizens, born and raised in the US. What do you think about that? Find out about this exciting and complex period of time in this kid's book.

Well established on college reading lists, Prisoners Without Trial presents a concise introduction to a shameful chapter in American history: the incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. With a new preface, a new epilogue, and expanded recommended readings, Roger Daniels’s updated edition examines a tragic event in our nation’s past and thoughtfully asks if it could happen again. “[A] concise, deft introduction to a shameful chapter in American history: the incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II.” —Publishers Weekly “More proof that good things can come in small packages... [Daniels] tackle[s] historical issues whose consequences reverberate today. Not only [does he] offer cogent overviews of [the] issues, but [he] is willing to climb out on a critical limb... for instance, writing about the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during WW II... ‘this book has tried to explain how and why the outrage happened. That is the role of the historian and his book, which is to analyze the past. But this historian feels that analyzing the past is not always enough’ — and so he takes on the question of ‘could it happen again?’ and concludes that there’s ‘an American propensity to react against “foreigners” in the United States during times of external crisis, especially when those “foreigners” have dark skins,’ and that Japanese-Americans, at least, ‘would argue that what has happened before can surely happen again.’” — Kirkus Reviews “An outstanding resource that provides a clear and concise history of the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.” — Alice Yang Murray, University of California, Santa Cruz “Especially in light of the events following September 11, 2001, Roger Daniels has done us a great favor. In a slender book, he tells, with the assurance of a master narrator, an immense story we — all of us — ignore at the peril of our freedoms.” —Gary Y. Okihiro, Columbia University “No book could be more timely. How, as a different immigrant minority is under racial pressure associated with a feared enemy, the updated Prisoners Without Trial helps us see clearly what lessons we may draw from the past.” — Paul Spickard, author ofJapanese Americans “In the epilogue to the first edition of Prisoners without Trial, Roger Daniels thoughtfully asked, ‘Could it happen again?’ Today, in post-9/11 America, that question has an answer: It can and it has. Daniels addresses these issues in a revised edition of this classic, and he finds the U.S. government perilously close to repeating with the Arab American population mistakes it made with the Japanese Americans.” —Johanna Miller Lewis, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

The internment of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II is one of the most shameful episodes in American history. This history and reference guide will help students and other interested readers to understand the history of this action and its reinterpretation in recent years, but it will also help readers to understand the Japanese American wartime experience through the words of those who were interned. Why did the U.S. government take this extraordinary action? How was the evacuation and resettlement handled? How did Japanese Americans feel on being asked to leave their homes and live in what amounted to concentration camps? How did they respond, and did they resist? What developments have taken place in the last twenty years that have reevaluated this wartime action? A variety of materials is provided to assist readers in understanding the internment experience. Six interpretive essays examine key aspects of the event and provide new interpretations based on the most recent scholarship. Essays include: - A short narrative history of the Japanese in America before World War II - The evacuation - Life within barbed wire-the assembly and relocation centers - The question of loyalty-Japanese Americans in the military and draft resisters - Legal challenges to the evacuation and internment - After the war-resettlement and redress A chronology of events, 26 biographical profiles of important figures, the text of 10 key primary documents--from Executive Order 9066, which authorized the internment camps, to first-person accounts of the internment experience--a glossary of terms, and an annotative bibliography of recommended print sources and web sites provide ready reference value. Every library should update its resources on World War II with this history and reference guide.

Experiences of Japanese American Women during and after World War II: Living in Internment Camps and Rebuilding Life Afterwards examines the experiences of Japanese American women who were in internment camps during World War II and after. Precious Yamaguchi follows these women after they were released and shows how they tried to rebuild their lives after losing everything. Using evidence from primary sources as well as over seven years of interviews with sixteen women, Yamaguchi provides a feminist, intergenerational, and historical study of how unequal the justice system has been to this group of people and how it has affected their quality of life, sense of identity, and relationship with future generations.

"This book tells the story of an unusual group of American soldiers in World War II, second-generation Japanese Americans (Nisei) who served as interpreters and translators in the Military Intelligence Service."--Preface.

Anne M. Blankenship's study of Christianity in the infamous camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II yields insights both far-reaching and timely. While most Japanese Americans maintained their traditional identities as Buddhists, a sizeable minority identified as Christian, and a number of church leaders sought to minister to them in the camps. Blankenship shows how church leaders were forced to assess the ethics and pragmatism of fighting against or acquiescing to what they clearly perceived, even in the midst of a national crisis, as an unjust social system. These religious activists became acutely aware of the impact of government, as well as church, policies that targeted ordinary Americans of diverse ethnicities. Going through the doors of the camp churches and delving deeply into the religious experiences of the incarcerated and the faithful who aided them, Blankenship argues that the incarceration period introduced new social and legal approaches for Christians of all stripes to challenge the constitutionality of government policies on race and civil rights. She also shows how the camp experience nourished the roots of an Asian American liberation theology that sprouted in the sixties and seventies.