Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

Following Japanʻs attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States removed 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from their homes on the West Coast and incarcerated them in remote camps. In Hawai`i, fewer than 2,000 people among the 160,000 were incarcerated. The question is, why not en masse? If people of Japanese ancestry were actually a security threat, as alleged, their large and concentrated numbers and proximity to strategic installations were a reason for removal from Hawai`i. Thus far, historians have only generalized that they made up over one-third of the population and were vital to the economy. In his new book, Inclusion, How Hawai’i Protected Japanese Americans from Mass Internment, Transformed Itself, and Changed America, author Tom Coffman has written a meticulously researched history of the remarkable individuals from across ethnic groups and civilian, police, FBI and military institutions who came together to spare Hawai`iʻs Japanese community from mass removal and enable their so