Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese American Internment Camps

This is a personal memior of life in a World War II era American internment camp for people of Japanese living in the US and their American born children. The author really shares her heart with the reader as she describes the conflicting emotions finding a national and ethnic identity. It so happens that her internment takes place during those same formative years when adolescents and young adults seems to want to discover who they are. It is also the story of an outstanding American family who brought strong values from Japan to America. The author and her parents accepted their fate with a quiet dignity and the brother even went off to fight in Europe for the same governemnt that placed his parents in a dirty, crowded, barbed-wire-surrounded encampment.

In my mind, I always tended to minimized what happened to the Japanese in America and their American children. Perhaps that was because I always compared it to the holocaust. The author concedes that the holocaust was much worse. However, the author also shares some pretty graphic scenes that could not have been easy for a young woman:

*group showers

*group toilets that must have stunk

*crowded living spaces where there was no privacy. While trying to sleep, a person could hear people coughing, wheezing, snoring, passing gas, giggling, grinding teeth, having sex.

*constant uncertainty as to the status of your future and your parent's property.

*add to that a brother fighting in a world war.

Anti-Japanese propaganda did not help matters, as the author describes the evil-monkey "Jap" stereo-types that even seem to have her feel somewhat ashamed to be Japanese. The author further goes on to describe the strong and conflicting emotions upon hearing about the bombing of Hiroshima.

It really is a fascinating story of an outstanding American family. Anyone who is interested in the social history of the USA should read it. It is a story that highlights one of the many aspects of the American melting pot experience. It is also very well written and is easy to read. I read all 200 pages in two days. Unlike many history books written by professors and professional historians, it requires almost no prior knowledge of World War II or the time period.

I agree completely with Cindy Lee's July 12 review of this book. I am also a sansei (3rd generation Japanese-American), and have heard only bits and pieces of my parents experience in the internment camp. The other bits and pieces I heard about these camps when in school were that they were for the "protection" of the Japanese who had migrated to this country and that it was a "good" thing.

Even though this happened back in the 1940's, it was very frustrating and angering for me to read the account of how people of Japanese ancestry were deprived of all their rights just because of that ancestry, and also because they could be more easily identified by their physical appearance than the German or Italian people. You can see the same situation brewing now with people of Middle-Eastern descent.

Ms. Gruenewald puts us right in the scene with her and her family as they undergo evacuation to the camps, and make do the best they can when they are forced to live there for several years.

I would also like to say that I felt the author tried to be objective in her writings. Her feelings are expressed very well, but she does not let it degenerate into a black and white, one side is all good and the other side is all bad portrayal. There are good and bad guys on both sides, and she also does a good job of pointing out the conflicts within the internees as far as loyalties. This was a very difficult time for everyone and decisions were not easily made. Ms. Gruenewald gets that across in her narrative. She does not try to incite the readers by making anything overly dramatic, she simply tells what she saw and experienced, along with how she felt about it, and I am appreciative of her account. Very well done.

On a side note: there is a reference to her website at the end of the book, but beware - it has been identified as a site that downloads viruses onto your computer. This was announced to me by my Firefox browser, which then allowed me to skip the page. Internet Explorer, which is not so secure, allowed me to visit the site at which time my anti-virus software warned me that the site was attempting to download viruses onto my computer, and it blocked them. Hopefully the author can get this remedied because I would like to visit the site and see what else she has to say.

I'm a history buff of sorts and alsways looking for books on American History. I've just started reading this book and it is already very interesting. We need to know how our citizens felt when they were treated like the enemy. We don't want to do it again.

I loved this book. As a Sansei, 3rd generation Japanese in America, I learned so much from reading this book. Both of my parents were interned during the war, but in all these years, they've only shared bits and pieces or vague generalities of their own experiences. Reading Mary Matsuda's vivid and detailed account of her own experience gave me a much greater appreciation and understanding of this traumatic, stressful period, along with a better understanding of basic Japanese customs and beliefs that have guided my own life. It has been a powerful step towards better understanding my own family's history, and I so appreciate that this story was shared by the author. It was beautifully written. I highly recommend this book to all.

A must. Extremely readable. Should be required reading for Junior or High School students. Evokes a sense of what it felt like to be Japanese during that infamous time.