Nisei

generation of Japanese who are considered weaken by their loyalties to the emperor and the motherland. They are still Japanese citizens but do break from their motherland and their culture in order to secure a better future for their children. The NISEI - second generation Americans educated entirely in America and who show an extreme eagerness to be American despite all the racial ignorance directed towards them. The last was the SANSEI - usually the third generation and child or baby and no…

And when we went to the internment camp, guard towers, double security fence and all that, I really wondered what’s going to happen to us. You know, that this is just the beginning and they may very well send us back to Japan. And that, to me, was horrible. I, in my heart, knew my loyalty belongs to America. I went to school, pledged allegiance every morning in grammar school. And for me to think that I may be sent to Japan was horrendous. And so that was sort of a nightmare. —Susumu Satow, THE…

While interned, she met her future husband, Bill Kochiyama, a Nisei (second-generation Japanese) soldier fighting for the US. Once married, they moved to Harlem and Kochiyama dedicated her life to social activism that spanned races, nationalities and causes, including opposition to the Vietnam War and apartheid in…

The movie, Go for Broke, centers around the Japanese American men who served in the 442nd regimental combat unit during World War II. Though unjustly imprisoned in internment camps, these men proved their loyalty to America and bravely fought against the Italian, German, and Japanese enemies, to become the most decorated unit in United States history. Released in 1951, six years after the end of the war, this movie aimed to change the prejudices against Japanese Americans in the United States.…

in his message in 1942 president Roosevelt stated part way threw A man will sacrifice not only his pleasures not only his goods not only his associations with those he l “loves but his life itself. In time of crisis when the future is in the balance we come to understand with full recognition and devotion what is and what we owe to it.” Was he really dedicated to his people and his century or was it all a lie we will prove his innocents. we believe that President Roosevelt is innocent and we…

are, how many people are still alive today that were a part of this history? How many, if any, of the Japanese-Americans were for Japan and against America? And lastly, how much of a power struggle was their between the Issei (immigrants) and the Nisei (American-born)? How was this conflict…

parents refused to allow it. I was placed in the lowest-level reading group, and eventually to one-on-one lessons with an ESL teacher. Although my English was terrible, my mother was more concerned with my Japanese, afraid I would become like some Nisei who couldn’t…

While many point to Asian-Americans and ultimately Japanese-Americans as examples of successful minorities in America, the fact remains that although they may be prosperous in terms of economic stability, compared to that of other minority groups, they are nowhere close to equality. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s played a major role in the transition of Japanese Americans views. Japanese and Chinese entrepreneurship as well as their high education rates were used as proof that colored…

typical Asian American woman “the submissive, subservient, ready-to-please, easy-to-get-along-with Asian woman.” Yamada even goes so far as to contrast her experiences as an Asian American woman to those of her male counterparts, the second generation “Nisei”…

provided the opportunity. As the Japanese Americans rushed to comply with the executive order, most were forced to sell their homes and businesses for a mere fraction of their actual value to Caucasians farmers. It is an interesting fact that the Nisei (second generation) and Issei (first generation) living in Hawaii and making up a third of the population were not subjected to the same mass evacuation and internment. According to Gail Sakurai in her book Japanese American Internment, the…