ABSTRACT
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, catalyzed a radical increase in anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States. Resident Japanese Americans were designated “enemy aliens,” although such labels were never applied to resident Germans or Italians (Thiesmeyer, 1995, p. 321). With the increasing sentiment against Japan, the U.S. government eventually decided to forcibly remove Japanese people living on the West Coast, arguing such action was a “military necessity” (Ng, 2002, p. 13). As a result of the evacuation program, approximately 120,000 people moved to 10 internment camps. Japanese Americans, especially Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans who were born and raised in the United States) were forced to grapple with their identities as U.S. citizens of Japanese descent.
