Late one evening, early in May 2002, I sat in a hotel room with a colleague, historical archaeologist Nicole Branton, after a very long day of traveling and conducting interviews. Together, we read from the wartime diary that Joe Norikane had so generously lent to us. Norikane stood defiantly against the government’s attempts to force Nisei (Americans of Japanese ancestry) to accept partial, second-class citizenship during World War II when he resisted the draft, ultimately becoming part of a group of resisters who called themselves “the Tucsonians.” We read the diary he kept from 1943 through 1944, believing that its...

When joe norikane was in third grade, his family moved from Yuba City to Walnut Grove, California. Before the move, Norikane had been one of only four Asian children in his school, but he never felt out of place and was never aware that his ancestry could differentiate him from the other kids. He participated in school plays, had Caucasian friends, and got along fine. When the family moved, his father took him to school in Walnut Grove for the first time. He said, “Joe, this is your school. It’s the Oriental School.” Norikane did not know what he was...

On a saturday morning in California only a few months after Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, a young Nisei boy heard a knock at his door. When he opened the door, he found a police officer standing on the porch. The officer could sense the boy’s fear and began joking around to put him at ease. The child’s father joined them. They were both relieved that the policeman had not come to take the father away. The FBI had taken many other fathers from their homes in the hours and days following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. This policeman explained...

The teletype message that set off a flurry of activity in Topaz on January 28, 1943, came from Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who announced that the War Department had created a combat unit exclusively for the Nisei. Nisei volunteers could enlist for military service during a loyalty registration program. War Department representatives would come to Topaz in two weeks to begin the process. Shortly after Stimson’s announcement, the War Relocation Authority (WRA) announced that it would conduct its own loyalty registration program for all Nikkei ages seventeen and older. The War Department and the WRA hoped their registration programs...

When gordon hirabayashi was sentenced after losing his initial court case in October 1942, he knew that he might have to serve prison time for his decision to refuse the government’s exclusion order, but he did not want to spend any more time inside an institution like the King County Jail. He had spent months confined in this short-term facility waiting for his trial and months more waiting for some acceptable form of parole while lawyers worked on his appeals. He could not bear serving his official sentence in a “walled institution.” He preferred the freedom of a road camp. In...

On january 20, 1944, Secretary of War Henry Stimson announced that the Selective Service had restored Nisei eligibility for the draft. Stimson declared that the draft gave Nisei the chance to restore their citizenship and to repair their public image as loyal Americans. The government had demonstrated its faith in Nisei, Stimson said, and now it was time for Nisei to demonstrate their faith in America.¹

On February 22, fifty-three Nisei men were scheduled to take the train from Amache to Denver for their preinduction physicals, but five refused to go. They became the first Nisei to resist the draft,...

When u.s. deputy marshall Alf G. Gunn drove his car into Topaz on May 16, 1944, he was surprised by the living conditions in this isolated camp in the middle of the Utah desert. Deputy Marshall Gunn had come to arrest Ken Yoshida for refusing to appear for his preinduction physical exam and failing to appear for military induction. Dust filled the air, making it difficult to see and even more difficult to breathe. Finding his way to Block 11, Barrack 3, Apartment C, Deputy Gunn knocked on the door, hoping to find Yoshida at home but also hoping to...

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman asked an independent review board to investigate the possibility of pardoning draft resisters. The board was directed by former Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts. They reviewed 15,805 cases and determined that during World War II, approximately ten thousand individuals had committed what they called “willful” and criminal violations of Selective Service regulations. They recommended that these resisters not be pardoned. By contrast, 4,300 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1,000 religious objectors, and 500 others had all resisted the draft on religious or moral grounds. It would be much easier to make a case for these resisters...

What do gordon hirabayashi’s and the Tucsonians’ stories tell us about the changing nature of citizenship, civil disobedience, and historical memory? The aim of this book is not only to tell the stories of Hirabayashi and the Tucsonians but also to place their stories in historic and theoretical context. Making sense of their experiences brings together literature on childhood, resistance, citizenship, prisons, punishment, and historical memory.

Nisei started life with all the rights of citizenship and few of the responsibilities. Their teachers told them that their race would not prevent them from being 100 percent American, but life taught them...