Enmity and Empathy: Japanese Americans in Minnesota during World War II

By Ka F.Wong  

The experiences of Japanese Americans and their allies  fighting discrimination in wartime Minnesota demonstrate how diverse  groups stood together amidst the turmoil—a legacy relevant in today’s  divisive world.

The forced eviction and confinement of  Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor in 1941 was one of the worst civil  rights violations of the twentieth century, and the repercussions were  numerous. The effect in Minnesota was dramatic: only fifty-one Japanese  American people lived in the state in 1940, but by war’s end there were  several thousand. 

Drawing on personal interviews,  archival sources, and historical literature, scholar and professor Ka Wong explores the courageous struggles of trailblazers who left the  incarceration camps and rebuilt their lives in the North Star State,  overcoming hostility and hardship along the way. Despite the enmity  ignited by war hysteria, bonds of empathy developed between the re-settlers and allies who advocated for them personally and  professionally. This volume illustrates the multiple ways in which  Japanese American people transformed both wartime Minnesota and their  own lives, including narratives of college students pursuing higher  education, young men and women training at the Military Intelligence  Service Language School at Camp Savage and then Fort Snelling, the US  Cadet Nurse Corps serving in Rochester hospitals, and entrepreneurial  families and individuals in the Twin Cities and beyond. Presenting the inspiring stories of Japanese Americans in Minnesota during World War  II, Enmity and Empathy spotlights a hidden chapter in the state’s history.

Paper: 400 pp.

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