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Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese American Internment Camps | 
 enlarge | Author: Mary Matsuda Gruenewald
Publisher: NewSage Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 163796
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.7
ISBN: 0939165538
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.531779635
EAN: 9780939165537
ASIN: 0939165538
Publication Date: March 10, 2005
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Product Description
In 1941, Mary Matsuda Gruenewald was a teenage girl who, like other Americans, reacted with horror to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Yet soon she and her family were among 110,000 innocent people imprisoned by the U.S. government because of their Japanese ancestry. In this eloquent memoir, she describes both the day-to-day and the dramatic turning points of this profound injustice: what is was like to face an indefinite sentence in crowded, primitive camps; the struggle for survival and dignity; and the strength gained from learning what she was capable of and could do to sustain her family. It is at once a coming-of-age story with interest for young readers, an engaging narrative on a topic still not widely known, and a timely warning for the present era of terrorism. Complete with period photos, the book also brings readers up to the present, including the author's celebration of the National Japanese American Memorial dedication in 2000.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
Excellent Account of a Trying Time July 5, 2008
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.
Looking Like the Enemy December 17, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
Powerful and Personal July 13, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese American Internment Camps June 14, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
Eye Opening February 14, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
My family was also sent to internment camps, actually some of the same ones as this author. We came from the same beloved Vashon. Being a child of a parental figure who came from that era and having had aunts and uncles, grandparents and great grandparents who had lived that experience but never spoken of it, this book has opened my eyes and helped me understand the severity of it all. I can understand now the turmoil emotionally and physically that they under went. I cried with this author. For even today, in this wide spread nation, I can still see the ripples of underlying current made from this time period and the choices made by our leaders. This is a wonderful book. You'll learn something, and if you don't, you should ask yourself some hard questions.
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