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

For sixty years, Mary Matsuda Gruenewald chose not to talk about her experiences in the Japanese-American internment camps during the Second World War. Forced into those camps as a confused, na?ve seventeen-year-old, she was unable to comprehend her situation, and until the early twenty-first century was not prepared to explore this region of her personal - and her country's - history. When in her seventies, her children grown, her parents and brother gone, she finally admitted to herself the importance of stepping beyond "the self-imposed barbed-wire fences" (p. x) and telling her story. Mary Matsuda moved to Puget Sound with her family at the age of two, in 1927. She and her older brother, Yoneichi, aged four, were American citizens by birth. Her parents had emigrated from Japan, but due to complex and unforgiving American immigration laws at the time, they remained Japanese citizens. Life on Vashon Island was "idyllic," (p. 1); her family rented a small strawberry farm which they worked; Mary and her brother attended the local school and church; and all the residents were friendly and warm-hearted. There were only a handful of Japanese on the island, and Mary was one of the few in her schoolhouse, but rarely were any in her family victims of prejudice. In December 1941, the Matsuda family trembled as they listened to radio broadcasts of the Pearl Harbor bombings. Though their neighbors and friends gathered around them in support, and though they were loyal residents, citizens, and believers in America, they were concerned the government might move against them. They burned all their cultural belongings; all their records, all their dolls, and all their photographs. The only Japanese item they did not burn was her parents' copy of the New Testament. They hoped to prove their loyalty, but on May 16, 1942, they were forced off the island and taken to an internment camp. The camp, like two others they would also stay at, was small and squalid. Their living quarters consisted of a twenty by twenty-four foot room, shared with a couple they had never met. There were no furnishings, save a hard cot for each; few windows; and only the thinnest walls separating them from the other interns. Under the menacing watch of armed soldiers, they ate lousy meals in a cacophonous mess hall, went to the bathroom in unenclosed, primitive facilities, slept under the glare of a constant searchlight, and dealt with numerous other indignities. The greatest struggle, however, was psychological. Questions haunted her during her entire experience. Was she going to die? What would happen to her parents if she did? Was she Japanese, a bomber of Pearl Harbor, or American, a supporter of imprisonment? In 1943 every intern received a questionnaire, asking among other things whether they would swear loyalty to the United States. This questionnaire split the camps between those who wished to protest the actions of the government against them, and vo

I sometimes have a difficult time getting past the first few pages of a new book but this story captured me from the start. This book gave a personal insight to the hardships and fears the Matsuda family and other families endured before and during the internment. I highly recommend this book!

Looking Like the Enemy is a not-to-be forgotten book. I savored every word and image as I tried to imagine how I would feel in Mary's Matsuda's shoes as a teenager imprisoned by her own government simply because of her parent's ancestry. Mary's writing is so vivid and she makes the internment come alive as she shares her thoughts and feelings at being plunged into this terrible situation. While her anger and fear are so real, so also is the hope that her mother in particular, instills in the family. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to better understand our history and also racial discrimination. In our world today when many are punishing those who "look like the enemy", may this book serve as a lesson to us all.

There are many books about the internment camp experience, but none have the emotional power and narrative drive of Mary Matsuda Gruenwald's book "Looking Like the Enemy." By sharing with us her personal story about her time in the camps, by laying bare her feelings of anger and shame in this heart-wrenching coming-of-age story, Mary Matsuda shows us what it is like to be torn from your community and friends for no good reason. Reading her book, I cannot help but think of the similar experiences now faced by Muslims in our country. The fact that we were wrong to imprison the Japanese-American populationis intellectually undeniable. Mary Matsuda shows us that same truth, but from the heart. And she show us how, with courage, it is possible to overcome the worst of experiences and still maintain ones dignity. This should be required reading for all of us and our children. The book lays bare a shameful chapter in our country's history that we must never be allowed to forget. Best of all, it's a great read.

I was not yet born when the U.S. government decided to round up tens of thousands of Japanese-American citizens and herd them into prison camps solely because of their Japanese heritage. It was not until I was an adult that I even heard of the internment camps. Yet after reading this book, Looking Like the Enemy, I feel as though I myself had been locked behind that barbed wire, feeling the depression and despair of an uncertain future. The author was seventeen when she was imprisoned - old enough to understand the implications, young enough to rage at the injustice. Her own government, to which she pledged allegiance daily in school, imprisoned her without cause. In this book, she exposes the raw emotions - fear, anger, worry, doubt - that she felt during those formative years of her life, and tells vivid stories I will never forget. She persevered and endured, strengthened by the wisdom of her mother. The book has changed me profoundly; I will never look at the removal of civil liberties in the same way again.