The first time I registered the weight of the Japanese American internment was in a high school history class, when a classmate brought in a letter his grandfather had received. It was an apology from a former president; an apology for the impact and harm that had been caused by the internment. While jarring at the time, it was not a topic I thought much of until reading Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts last year, which is a fictionalized story based on the internment, and in which she references Reeves’ book as context for her tale.
Richard Reeves uses the stories of several individuals and families to bring the story of the Japanese American internment to life. The story is diligently researched and, while the volume of names made the story hard to follow at times, it communicated the vast numbers of lives changed and affected by the internment. Starting at the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Reeves walks the reader through the rising panic amongst the US (mainly white) population, the politicians who shaped the evacuation orders, the internment camps themselves, what life looked like during the war, and through to the closing of the camps.
I do not know what it was like to live in the midst of a war where an attack was on home soil, fearing that enemies were all around without knowing who to trust, and I believe it’s important to be aware of that hindsight when reading these accounts. It’s equally harrowing, however, to realize how quickly hysteria can be spread by press and politicians without evidence. Reeves handles the subject fairly, being critical and frank about the tragedy of removing thousands of loyal US citizens from their homes and the upheaval it left them in after the war, while also finding the positive aspects and the people who took a stand. While I found the reality of a lot of the book hard to face, my heart was especially wrenched for the Japanese Americans who served our country, only to come home to the prejudice they had just fought against and sacrificed for.
I thought this book was excellently researched and written. It chronicled a regretful part of America’s past without demonizing the country as a whole, only the people who pushed their own agendas to the detriment of thousands. Previously, my understanding of Japanese internment during the war was that they were immigrants temporarily relocated for the duration of the war – more ‘summer’ camp than ‘internment’ camp – and I certainly had no concept that US citizens were taken as well. It was especially sickening to learn that some German officers are on record justifying their concentration camps by pointing to the Japanese American internment camps. I believe it’s necessary to grapple with the past to learn from our history, and Reeves’ provides an excellent lesson to study.
2% Rating: 7.5/10
Recommend? To non-fiction and history enthusiasts, absolutely.
Re-Read? Maybe
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