Yes-yes Term Analysis

Question 27 wanted us to pledge our lives for a country that had upended our families and put us behind barbed-wire fences.

Question 28 rested on a false premise: that we all had a racial allegiance to the emperor of Japan. To answer “yes” would be to agree that we had such a loyalty to give up. Yes or no, either response would be used to justify our wrongful imprisonment—as if they’d been right to call us “enemy aliens” and lock us up in the first place.

As President Clinton said that day, “Rarely has a nation been so well-served by a people it has so ill-treated.” These brave soldiers clung to their belief in the shining ideals of their country.

Though they responded in different ways—caring for their families...

Fighting on the battlefield...

Or serving time for their principles—all these Japanese Americans showed incredible courage and heroism.

They proved that being American is not just for some people. They all made difficult choices to demonstrate their patriotism to this country even when it rejected them.