After the attack on Pearl Harbor, over 125,000 Japanese Americans living in the continental United States were incarcerated in prison camps. The majority of these were born in America and US citizens. This was authorised by an Executive Order from President Roosevelt.
The Japanese Americans complied and spent years in the camps. Even though incarcerated, they remained loyal Americans. When the call came for volunteers for the Army first the 100th Infantry Battalion was formed and then the 442 Regimental Combat Team - in which thousands of Japanese Americans volunteered to serve. These two units were awarded over 4,000 Purple Hearts, and 21 men received the Medal of Honor.
In post-war America, the narrative of the treatment of Japanese Americans shifted. In 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which officially apologised for the incarceration on behalf of the U.S. government.
Joining me today is Mitchell Maki.
Mitchell is the President and CEO of the Go For Broke National Education Center, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving the legacy and lessons of the Nisei World War II veterans. And he is the author of Achieving the Impossible Dream: How Japanese Americans Obtained Redress.
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146 - Stop Lines
145 - Bomb Aimers
144 - Alan Brooke: Churchill's Right-Hand Critic
143 - The Battle for Madagascar
142 - Mackenzie King
141 - Eighth Army versus Rommel
140 - How to kill a Panther tank
139 - German Uniforms of WWII
138 - Hang Tough: Major Dick Winters
137 - Operation Lena and Hitler's Plots to Blow up Britain
136 - The Defeat of Army Group South, 1944
135 - Spaniards in the British Army
134 - The Original Jeeps
133 - Rome
132 - The 746th Far East Air Force Band
131 - Economists at War
130 - The Texel Uprising: Night of Bayonets
129 - The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign, November 1942–March 1943
128 - The Doolittle Raiders and their Fight for Justice
127 - The Longest Campaign
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