Faith, Citizenship, and the Internment Camps

This summer, as the Trump administration has overseen the internment of asylum-seekers and unaccompanied minors in overcrowded detention facilities across the Southwest, and as the president himself has issued calls to "send back" congresswomen of color who criticize his policies, the United States seems to be awash in a brash, unveiled nativism. This environment has prompted some comparison to the events of the early 1940s, when more than 100,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated in camps primarily across the American West. A new book by Duncan Ry?ken Williams, Professor of Religion and East Asian Languages & Cultures at the University of Southern California, recounts that history, with attention to questions of identity, community, and patriotism.