While more than 110,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans in the United States endured mass incarceration during WWII, the war also altered the lives of thousands of Japanese Americans who were stranded in Japan. For many Nisei strandees in Japan, the war blurred the boundaries of their citizenship, as they found themselves in situations where they had little room to negotiate their national allegiance. As the battles in the Pacific theater dragged on, the Japanese government drafted a significant number of Nisei men in Japan to serve in the military and take arms against the United States.

The Nisei soldiers and sailors in the Japanese armed forces who survived the war learned that they had been stripped of their U.S. citizenship as a result of their service to the Japanese emperor. Although these veterans of the Japanese military could recover their U.S. citizenship after the war, the onus was on them to convince the U.S. government that they had been forced to serve the Japanese emperor.

Dr. Michael Jin of Texas A&M University will be at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) to discuss his research in a presentation entitled "The War and Its Aftermath: Nisei Draftees in the Imperial Armed Forces." His presentation will be followed by a special discussion featuring two Japanese Americans who found themselves serving in the Japanese military during WWII: Peter Sano and Jimmie Matsuda.

Read more about our featured guests at www.jamsj.org.

Cost: Free with admission to the museum (nonmembers, $5; students and seniors over age 65, $3; JAMsj members and children under 12, free).
Contact PublicPrograms@jamsj.org or call (408) 294-3138 to reserve a spot.