Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad

Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad-The Story of the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II(Robert Asahina, Penguin, Gotham Books 2006)

The Japanese, like the American Indian, the African American, the Mexican American, the American Vietnamese, Chinese, and every other hyphenated-American nationality, possess a unique history. But the Japanese experience has been even more uncommon than others. The book, Just Americans, tells the story of that uncommonness. It makes an important contribution, not only because at least once in every passing year we honor Veterans who matter, but also because it is far too easy to forget that immigrants matter too. A lot.

Just Americans is the comprehensive guide to one ethnic group in particular, the Japanese. It tells a saga of the Japanese-American nissei, the sons (and daughters, but sons mostly are featured here) of immigrants who until relatively recently have unfortunately not mattered very much. This is to say that the immigrant cannot matter too much in a country which has been populated almost exclusively by immigrants, without whom we might still be eating buffalo meat and venison instead of the likes of baklava, spaghetti, cabbage, wieners, baguettes, bagels, sushi, pho-tai, and lemon grass chicken.