When Pearl Harbor was bombed, many Japanese Americans, both Issei and Nisei, reacted with the same shock and outrage as their white neighbors. Charles Kikuchi, a college student living in the San Francisco area, wrote in his diary:

Pearl Harbor. We are at war! . . . The Japs bombed Hawaii and the entire fleet has been sunk. I just can't believe it. I don't know what . . . is going to happen to us, but we will all be called into the Army right away. . . . I will go and fight even if I think I am a coward and I don't believe in wars. . . . If we are ever going to prove our Americanism, this is the time.

Nisei lined up to volunteer for the armed forces and Japanese Americans, eager to prove their loyalty to the United States, prepared to support the war effort along with their fellow countrymen. Japanese Americans...