On December 13, 1943, Iris Watanabe became the first Japanese American woman to join the Women’s Army Corps, marking a breakthrough for Nisei women during WWII.
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Western Defense Command
The Western Defense Command wasn’t created to tear families apart. But after Pearl Harbor, its leaders turned fear into policy, fueling mass removal, silencing intelligence warnings, and reshaping American civil liberties in 1942.
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Sand Island Internment Camp
Sand Island opened on December 8, 1941, turning Japanese immigrants and U.S. citizens into POWs overnight. A stark look at the first internment camp in Hawaiʻi.
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Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor shook the nation — and fear quickly turned on Japanese Americans. Propaganda, arrests, and mass incarceration followed, reshaping more than 120,000 lives.
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Manzanar Riot
On December 5, 1942, the Manzanar Riot erupted over the arrest of an inmate and deepening distrust between generations, informants, and camp authorities. Martial law was declared. Two men were killed. Many more were wounded.
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Yeiko Mizobe So
Born to a samurai family, Yeiko Mizobe So became a pioneering protector of Japanese immigrant women in Hawaiʻi. She founded the Japanese Women’s Home in 1895 and later a children’s home, sheltering hundreds and redefining community advocacy in the early Japanese American experience.
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Claude Akira Mimaki
Born in California and imprisoned as an enemy, Claude Akira Mimaki volunteered for the U.S. Army from behind barbed wire, served in two wars, and went on to build a life and business in postwar Japan. His story traces the full arc of the Nisei experience, from exclusion to service to reinvention, lived across borders and decades.
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Michi Nishiura Weglyn
Michi Nishiura Weglyn spent her teenage years behind barbed wire at Gila River. Decades later, urged by her Holocaust survivor husband, she exposed the government’s lies about Japanese American incarceration in, “Years of Infamy,” a book that helped spark the redress movement.
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Eric Shinseki
Eric Shinseki grew up hearing stories of three uncles who fought with the all-Nisei 100th/442nd. He carried their legacy through Vietnam, a near-fatal injury, and into history as the first Asian American four-star general.
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