K-State First Book: They Called Us Enemy
This guide provides resources and material related to George Takei's They Called Us Enemy, a memoir of his family's internment during WWII.
Library Research Guide
Yes-Yes or No-No?
How would you respond when faced with this question? What emotions, obligations, or perceptions might influence your decision?
Source: Japanese American Pilgrimages
- The Renunciation Act of 1944
During World War II, 5,589 American citizens of Japanese descent renounced their U.S. citizenship. The renunciations took place between December 1944 and July 1945, mostly in Tule Lake concentration camp, California. The vast majority of renunciations had little to do with "disloyalty" to the U.S., but instead were the result of a series of complex conditions and events that were beyond the control of those involved. After a legal battle, most renunciants had their U.S. citizenship restored in the 1960s.
Military Service
- The 442nd Regimental Combat Team
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, was an Army unit comprised of Japanese Americans from Hawai’i and the mainland United States. Their motto "Go For Broke!" was derived from a gambler’s slang used in Hawai’i which meant that the player was risking it all in one effort to win big. These Nisei, they were fighting to win two wars: the war against the Germans in Europe and the war against racial prejudice in America. - The Color of Honor
Use K-State EID to access this video. A full audio transcript is available in the database. The Color of Honor is a vivid, collective portrait of the Japanese American experience in World War II, including an introduction to the evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans in the U.S. In this documentary, filmmaker Loni Ding features the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated military unit in U.S. history; the Military Intelligence Service (M.I.S.) – the linguists who decoded Japanese military plans; and the thousands of draft resisters and army protesters who challenged the constitutionality of the internment camps.
Resistance
- Letter From The Ladies of Hunt Relocation Center
In Minidoka in January 1944, a strike by some 160 boilermen and janitors — over recent layoffs and the imposition of a new 24-hour work schedule — left the camp without hot water in the middle of the harsh Idaho winter. On January 6, a delegation of seventy-five Issei and Nisei women marched on the offices of Assistant Project Director R.S. Davidson and effectively held an eight-hour sit-in to push camp administrators to meet the striking workers’ demands. They refused to leave until he forwarded a statement from the women to War Relocation Authority (WRA) Director Dillon Myer not asking but demanding the restoration of hot water. - Image source- Densho.org
- Learn more about how Issei and Nissei Women contributed to resistance.
Contrary to commonly-held stereotypes about good wives and wise mothers with small voices and few opinions, Issei mothers were no strangers to resistance. Prior to WWII, Japanese immigrant women created shelters and organized services for picture brides escaping abusive marriages, sustained worker strikes with the invisible labor of feeding a movement, and in at least one case, organized to demand paid maternity leave. That these women were fully capable of holding their own will should as little surprise. - Image Source - Densho.org - Fred Korematsu
Fred T. Korematsu was a national civil rights hero. In 1942, at the age of 23, he refused to go to the government’s incarceration camps for Japanese Americans. After he was arrested and convicted of defying the government’s order, he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against him, arguing that the incarceration was justified due to military necessity. - Gordon Hirabayashi
Hirabayashi's resistance to what he believed were unconstitutional, racially written and motivated laws establishing curfew and later exclusion for Japanese Americans during World War II was rooted in his family upbringing, his pacifist religious ideals and his education at the University of Washington and at a summer YMCA leadership workshop at Columbia University. - Statements of Resistance
This PDF provided by the Asian American Studies Center of UCLA contains copies of petitions for justice from Japanese American organizations such as Mothers of Topaz, Mother's Society of Minidoka, Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee and others. This link will open a PDF file.
