Japanese Americans and Internment

The book I have apparently was used in some school system and is part of the globe Mosaic of American History. It's almost like a Cliff Notes of things about Japanese Americans.

The book starts off with the history of Japanese Americans from 1968 until 1940. There is text and photos, and then a section of questions for the student. At the end of the chapter there are a couple pages of questions covering key ideas, who/what/where, understanding the chapter, making connections, and writing about history.

The second chapter deals from the Pearl Harbor attack to the decision to intern the persons of Japanese ancestry. One of the very good things it does is examine how the situation in Hawaii was different from that on the West Coast.

Chapter 3 deals with the actual internment process. Each chapter also includes a graphic timeline helping to place specific events in one's memory. The assembly camps are covered in chapter 3, and chapter 4 deals with the actual internment camps. The fourth chapter talks about life in the camps, and has a table with the name of the camps, when they were opened and closed, and their maximum population. This chapter also goes into a discussion of the prejudice against the persons of Japanese ancestry.

Chapter 5 deals with how some of the internees were able to leave the camps, some going to schools and some finding jobs in the Midwest or East. It also goes into a discussion of the Nisei who ended up in the U.S. military, fighting the enemy while some of the Nisei still had families behind barbed wire in the internment camps.

Chapter 6 goes into the legal issues raised, both of the internment and evacuation themselves, and of redress.

The book also includes a glossary. As I said, this is a Cliff Notes type of book condensing a whole lot of information and serving as an excellent brief overview of persons of Japanese ancestry in the U.S. and Hawaii.



Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page