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(somber music) (gun firing)
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- [Narrator] It is the most decorated military unit
in United States history.
- They fought for the ideals of American democracy.
- Their stories are the stuff of movies.
(gun firing)
- They were fighting the Nazis, but they were also fighting
the internal racism of our nation.
- [Narrator] The Japanese American soldiers
of World War II
played a pivotal role in the Allied victory,
yet their story is not well known.
- As a soldier, I revere their record.
I study it,
as do other soldiers, for what it teaches us:
how to lead, how to persevere, what obligation means,
what cohesion means, what comradery means.
- [Narrator] Most of the soldiers are gone now,
but their stories are preserved
in letters, photos, and oral histories
uncovered from a special collection of archives.
- I feel proud that I was allowed
to defend my country.
- [Narrator] This is "Hidden Heroes:
"The Nisei Soldiers of World War II."
(ominous music)
(guns firing)
(tank booming)
After more than five years of intense fighting,
the Allies have the upper hand in World War II,
but they can't break through the last major Nazi defense
in the mountains of Italy, known as the Gothic Line.
- The Gothic Line, it was a heavily-fortified 200-mile line.
The Army had been attempting
to break through that fortification for months,
months and months and months.
- [Narrator] That's when the Allies bring in
the 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team,
made up of second-generation Japanese American soldiers
known as Nisei.
- The 100th/442nd is the only regiment
that the Nazis were following
and making sure their location at all times.
- [Narrator] To break through the German defensive line,
the Nisei soldiers come up with a plan
that the Nazis would never expect:
scaling cliffs up the back of the treacherous mountains
in complete darkness.
- 60-degree incline, slippery at certain places
because it was shale and there was condensation.
And there was an agreement and an understanding
that if you fell, you don't yell out
because that would give away the position of the unit.
- In a very daring, bold nighttime assault,
they climbed up the backside of one of these mountains,
surrounded the Germans, overwhelmed them,
and punched a hole through the Gothic Line.
- [Narrator] What Allied forces
had been trying to accomplish for months,
the Nisei soldiers achieve in minutes.
It's a pivotal turning point.
- Once the line was ruptured
and you're behind the German defenses,
they started crumbling.
And then it was attack, attack, attack
to the end of the war.
- [Narrator] The soldiers' bold and courageous attack
signals the beginning of the end for the Nazis.
- Different commanding officers argued over the right
to have the 100th and the 442nd
as part of their fighting unit
because they were the crack unit, the tip of the spear.
- [Narrator] But the journey to victory
for the Nisei soldiers is a complicated one
that begins more than three years earlier.
(explosions booming)
- [President Roosevelt] December 7th,
1941,
a date which will live
in infamy.
(airplane engines roaring)
- [Narrator] The bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,
by Japanese forces marks the United States' entry
into World War II and forever changes the lives
of thousands of Japanese Americans.
- In Hawaii, the young men, as well as their families,
many of them witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
They get hear the bombs falling.
They could hear the explosions.
And for many of them,
they had a very visceral reaction in that moment.
- [Narrator] 17-year-old Daniel Inouye
sees the Japanese planes
and realizes his life is about to change.
- And then, suddenly, three planes,
they were the fighter bombers,
flew overhead after they had made their run
across Pearl Harbor.
I felt that my life had come to an end at that point
because, obviously, the pilot in that plane looked like me.
And I wasn't quite certain
as to what the future held for us.
- [Narrator] Sakae Takahashi is a student
at the University of Hawaii and also witnesses the attack.
- I felt the...
Rumbling, you know?
I saw the planes bombing the Arizona and the Oklahoma and
all those ships, and I said, "It's war."
- [Narrator] Takahashi is a member of the ROTC.
He's immediately called out to defend Hawaii.
- These college kids were deployed all over the island,
along with the National Guard,
to guard critical installations.
And in January of 1942, a month later,
they were summarily discharged.
(sullen music)
- [Narrator] Following the attack on Pearl Harbor,
fear and paranoia grips America.
The government designates Japanese Americans
across the country as enemy aliens.
- American citizens, simply because of our faces,
were considered enemy aliens.
- That classification was devastating to the ROTC cadets.
It was humiliating, frustrating.
They wanted to serve.
- That, to me, was not only distressing
but it was insulting.
And I could feel the tension among my contemporaries.
We resented that very much because we considered ourselves
to be not only law-abiding but good patriotic Americans.
- On February 19th, 1942,
the president of the United States,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, signed Executive Order 9066,
which ordered all Japanese Americans on the West Coast,
Washington, Oregon, California, and a part of Arizona,
to be summarily rounded up
and put in 10 barbwire prison camps with no charge,
no trial, no due process.
- [Narrator] Nearly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry
living on the mainland are forced into the camps.
Two-thirds of them are American citizens by birth.
- They lost their jobs, they lost their businesses.
But most of all, what they lost was a sense of place
at the American table of citizenship.
- [Narrator] They also lose their ability
to fight for their homeland.
Japanese Americans are prohibited from enlisting,
and those already serving are sidelined.
- At the outbreak of war, there were about 1,400 Nisei
who were already serving in the Hawaii National Guard,
and most of them had been drafted into the Army.
But the Army did not know what to do with them
when war broke out,
(tense music)
so it held them in limbo for several months.
- [Narrator] Then, in June 1942,
the Nisei soldiers are secretly shipped off Hawaii
in the middle of the night.
They aren't told where they're going or why.
- When they landed in California, they were told,
"You are now the 100th Infantry Battalion, Separate,"
meaning they were not attached to any regiment
within the Army.
(foreboding music)
- [Narrator] The new 100th Battalion
of Japanese American soldiers begins training
at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin
under the command of white officers.
- They were considerably smaller
than Caucasian soldiers at this time,
really having to fight for their place
and demonstrate their loyalty and "gaman,"
or try as hard as they can
to prove that they could hit these military standards.
- [Narrator] The Japanese American soldiers
weigh an average of 125 pounds
and stand an average of 5'4" tall.
During training, they surpass military benchmarks,
proving they are just as tough and loyal
as any other American soldier.
- Many of them were told specifically or explicitly
by their parents, "Do not cause shame for your family.
"Fight bravely.
"Demonstrate your loyalty, your obligation to America,
"this country that is the country of your birth,
"the country that you owe loyalty to."
We know all eyes were watching us
and we knew we had to prove
how valuable Japanese were in America at this time.
- [Narrator] By 1943, the Nisei soldiers
have proven their value
and the Army wants to recruit
even more Japanese American soldiers.
But would they volunteer to fight for a country
that has imprisoned them?
(tense music) (explosions booming)
- [Narrator] Just over a year after Pearl Harbor,
the United States is battling the Axis powers
in both the Pacific and North Africa.
The Army is stretched thin
and looking for more men to serve.
- The training record was superior
of the 100th Infantry Battalion,
and the government decided it was time to try their hand
at an all-Japanese volunteer unit, combat unit.
- [Narrator] The government reverses its ban
on enlisting Japanese Americans.
- The government asked for about 4,500 men to serve.
Well, here in Hawaii, nearly 10,000 stepped forward.
My dad was one of them.
And he told us that many of his friends wept,
they cried when they were rejected from serving
because they wanted to serve so badly.
- On Hawaii, they weren't incarcerated en masse.
They were eager to go and they were angry
because, again, their home had been attacked.
- [Narrator] Most Japanese Americans in Hawaii
are not in camps because they make up
such a large part of the local labor force.
- And yet on the mainland,
it was a very different story because, for the most part,
most Japanese American men of draft age
or of service age were in concentration camps.
- [Narrator] Young men like 17-year-old Rudy Tokiwa,
who's incarcerated in Poston, Arizona.
- My dad was a veteran of World War I.
And when they started gonna put us all
into concentration camps,
I asked him at that time,
"Why us?
"You fought for the United States in World War I."
- [Narrator] Despite being imprisoned,
Tokiwa feels a duty to volunteer.
- A lot of people told me I was crazy.
They told me, "You didn't have to volunteer."
But to me, there was a task ahead of us.
We not only had to show
but we had to prove that we were Americans.
- [Narrator] Tokiwa becomes part of
the 442nd Regimental Combat Team,
made up of newly-enlisted Japanese Americans
from Hawaii and the mainland.
They begin training with the 100th
at Camp Shelby in Mississippi.
- All Japanese,
but yet from very different life experiences.
So, the Japanese from Hawaii, they spoke pidgin English.
They were a bit more laid back.
The Japanese who volunteered from the mainland
were a bit more formal.
They volunteered from incarceration camps,
so their life experiences were very different.
- And literally, these two groups would fight.
I mean, fistfights galore.
It got so bad that the Army at one point thought,
"This is a failed experiment.
"These guys can't get along.
"They are never gonna be a fighting unit."
- Daniel Inouye volunteers from Hawaii
and remembers the fights with the mainland soldiers.
He also remembers what finally brings them together.
- We nearly got disbanded
and scattered all over the United States.
And so, the leadership tried all...
They tried everything: discussion groups, social hours,
and nothing worked.
- [Narrator] Then, Inouye and some of his fellow soldiers
from Hawaii are sent to visit
incarceration camps in Arkansas.
They are shocked by what they see.
- And this one had a tall fence around, a barbwire fence.
- Its military guns were pointed in,
and anyone who attempted to escape was immediately shot.
- They were struggling to make heads and tails out of this.
And as they went in to the camp,
they saw the Japanese American families.
- The people there had set aside one week's ration of food
so that they could give us a party.
They had an orchestra and all that.
We tried our best to be happy,
but how can you be happy in those circumstances?
And I believe that what was running through the minds
of most, if not all, was a question.
"Would I have volunteered from that camp?"
In our eyes, they were heroes that they would take that step
in spite of this incarceration
to stand up and defend the country that did that to them.
- [Narrator] After seeing the harsh conditions
of the camps in 1943,
Japanese American soldiers of all backgrounds
unite behind a common cause, with the motto "Go for broke."
- They were all in.
In whatever mission they had, they were going for it.
They were all in.
- [Narrator] The 442nd continues their training
in Mississippi, and the 100th Battalion
of about 1,400 Japanese American soldiers from Hawaii
leaves for the frontlines,
where they will face a ferocious enemy.
(explosion booming)
(airplane engine roaring)
The United States forces the Axis powers out of Africa
and moves on to Europe.
The 100th Infantry Battalion of Japanese American soldiers
is sent to Italy to capture
a heavily-defended Nazi facility.
- Monte Cassino was a monastery
that was built on the slopes of this large mountain
about 1,500 feet high.
Four stories, 10-foot walls,
surrounded by a valley that had a river running through it.
And what the Nazis had done is dammed up the river
such that when the time was appropriate,
they could flood the valley with water.
- [Narrator] The Allies have to defeat the Nazis
at Monte Cassino in order to continue on to Rome,
a key Nazi stronghold.
But getting across the valley is no easy task.
- They were going to negotiate that two miles of swampland
under fire and try to get to the river,
cross the river, and attack the village
and a couple of smaller Hills around Monte Cassino.
- [Narrator] Two miles to cross with no cover,
nowhere to hide.
The first of the Nisei soldiers makes their move at night.
- They go out at night.
And incredibly, they're able to make it
all the way across at night.
They left behind dead and wounded
over that two-mile stretch, screaming, crying for help,
and some of 'em laid out there two days and two nights
before anybody could get to 'em.
- [Narrator] It was already a dangerous crossing at night,
but then the order comes in:
The rest of the soldiers are to cross in daylight.
- It was almost suicidal because it was a frontal assault.
It was no maneuver; you had to go right at them.
- [Narrator] Sakae Takahashi is a company commander
in the 100th, one of only a handful of nonwhite officers.
- We told him that it was impossible
for us to accomplish anything during the day,
but he said, "No, you go across.
"This is the order."
- [Narrator] It was so dangerous that the ranking officer,
Major Clough, refuses the order,
eventually leaving Takahashi in charge.
- And Major Clough says, "I won't do it,"
so Major Clough is relieved on the spot.
Sakae Takahashi was widely respected already.
He's a company commander.
He goes back and he talks to his lieutenants
and says, "What do you think?"
And the lieutenants say, "Okay, that's our orders.
"Let's try it."
- Under the cover of smoke,
they would try and transverse that field.
Once they got out there, however, the wind changed
and the smoke blew in the opposite direction
and they were revealed to the Nazis.
And it's at that point
that they took incredibly heavy casualties.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] The Allies never take the abbey on the ground
and eventually call in an airstrike.
(explosion booming)
- There's no doubt in my mind, especially initially,
that the 100th Battalion were used as cannon fodder.
They were the first ones in.
They took the heavy casualties.
They were considered expendable.
- It was from that battle that they develop the nickname
"The Purple Heart Battalion."
And the Purple Heart is given to those who are wounded
or are killed as a result of enemy action.
- [Narrator] The 100th landed in Italy with about 1,400 men.
After fighting for just over four months,
there were only 521 left.
- So, wave after wave after wave of young Japanese Americans
went into those battles,
each wave fighting with incredible,
unbelievable courage,
each wave fighting with amazing heroism.
- Normally in the military parlance of the time,
you had to outnumber the defender three to one.
Rarely did the 100th Battalion ever attack
where they outnumbered the defensive forces three to one,
but they doggedly fought against a tremendous enemy.
- [Narrator] The battalion's courageous performance in Italy
earns them their first presidential citation.
- All of you Americans of Japanese descent
have a right to be proud today.
You have demonstrated true Americanism
and true American citizenship on the field of battle.
- [Narrator] By 1944, the 100th Battalion earns a reputation
for courage on the battlefield.
At the same time,
there's another group of Japanese Americans
using a secret weapon to win the war off the battlefield.
(tense music) (gunfire)
The Allies are battling the Japanese
on the frontlines in the Pacific.
And behind the scenes,
the United States is planning to strike
at the heart of the Japanese military.
- The United States at that time
was just starting to plan bombing over Japan,
but they had no idea where to bomb.
They didn't know where the manufacturing plants were.
They didn't know where weapons were stored.
- [Narrator] Hoping to gain the upper hand,
they call in the Military Intelligence Service, or MIS,
about 6,000 Nisei soldiers
working as linguists and translators.
- They were sometimes called the secret weapon
of the Pacific war because Japan did not know
that we had American soldiers
who could speak the Japanese language.
- They had to master not just, of course,
the regular vernacular terminology,
but also a very specific script
used by high-ranking military officers
that is incredibly difficult to read, difficult to master.
- [Narrator] One soldier, Kazuo Yamane,
is particularly skilled at decoding
secret Japanese communications.
He had attended a university in Japan
where he was also required to join
the Japanese equivalent of ROTC.
- His Japanese was very, very fluent,
as well as familiarity with military terminology,
which was critical.
- [Narrator] While working at Camp Ritchie in Maryland,
Yamane makes a discovery
that would change the course of the war.
- It was 15 waterlogged crates
that were discovered by the Navy floating on the ocean.
Navy intelligence screened it,
labeled them no military value.
But fortunately, his commander says,
"Just check it over really quickly, just in case,"
and that's when he made that critical discovery.
He opened it up, saw the table of contents,
and realized it was the ordinance inventory
of the Japanese Army.
- They had the location of the depots and the armaments.
It became the basis
for a strategic bombing campaign of Japan.
(airplane engine roaring)
- They could now pinpoint the exact location
of what they wanted to accomplish.
(explosions booming)
That wouldn't have been possible
without my father's discovery.
- [Narrator] Yamane has no idea the impact he has on the war
until the 1970s, when the files are declassified.
- When he was asked about his discovery,
he always reminded people that,
"I may have strong family ties to Japan, but I am American
"and I have proved my loyalty,
"just like all of the Nisei soldiers did."
- General MacArthur said
that never before in military history
was an army as well-informed about the enemy
prior to engagement.
And truly, they were credited with helping to end the war
years earlier than otherwise would've happened.
- [Narrator] While the Japanese American soldiers in the MIS
have a major impact from their bases at home,
many are also sent on dangerous combat missions
in the Pacific.
- They would interrogate prisoners of war
that were captured.
They were asked to crawl across terrain,
eavesdrop on Japanese encampments,
the soldiers as they talked.
- [Narrator] Takejiro Higa is recruited into the MIS
not only because of his language skills
but because he spent much of his childhood
in Okinawa, Japan.
- He was sent to participate in the Battle of Okinawa,
which was one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.
During one of his interrogations,
he came across two of his former classmates.
- They look at me in shock, you know, and they start crying.
"Why are you crying?"
"Well, until now,
"after this interrogation is over
"and our usefulness is over,
"you guys might take us over the hill and shoot 'em.
"Now, knowing that our own classmates
"are on the other side of the fence,
"we figure our life will be saved."
Say, "We cry for happiness."
That kinda hit me.
So, three of us grabbed each other's shoulder
and I don't mind tell you, we had a cry.
- [Narrator] In Okinawa, it is common for even civilians
to commit suicide when American soldiers arrive,
believing they will be tortured.
- [Lynn] Men like Takejiro
who could speak the Okinawan language
were able to coax hundreds of civilians and soldiers
to surrender, thereby saving many, many lives.
- [Narrator] The Nisei soldiers save not just American
and Japanese lives, but also Jewish prisoners in Germany,
where they witness the horrors of Hitler's regime firsthand.
(tense music)
- [Narrator] The Allied D-Day invasion of Normandy
brings the US closer to victory.
At the same time,
the Japanese American men of the 100th Battalion
are finally joined by their counterparts from the 442nd.
They are given another seemingly impossible mission
a few months later.
- There were about 200 Texan soldiers
that had been stuck in the Vosges mountains in France.
- And they had become surrounded by the Germans.
The commanding general, General Dahlquist,
had sent unit after unit up
to try to break through and get them out,
and none of these other units were able to do so.
- [Narrator] That's when the 100th/442nd is called in.
The Nisei soldiers had been in horrific fighting
for 10 days when they are sent to rescue
the lost battalion of Texan soldiers.
(tense music)
Rudy Tokiwa remembers how he felt when he got the order.
- If an order comes through, you gotta do it.
So, like we always say,
"(speaking Japanese), we do it."
The trees in there were so damn thick
you couldn't see a hundred feet ahead of you.
And one of the things we had to worry about
is the Germans would let us go in
and then they'd close the door in back of us.
- The men of the 442nd understood
that this was a suicide mission.
They understood that walking into that forest
to do what they are being asked to do
would mean that many of them would be injured
and many of them would not walk out.
But they also understood
that the eyes of a nation were upon them.
- They had to fight their way up the side of this mountain
to get to this Texas unit. (guns firing)
Rudy was wounded, like almost everybody
that started up the mountain that day.
It was a wound that he was able to keep fighting through,
but he saw many of his friends cut down that day.
- [Narrator] The men fight for six grueling days
until they reach the Texans and rescue them,
succeeding where so many others fail.
- [Newsreel Reporter] Out of the jaws of death
come infantry men of the 36th Division.
- [Narrator] While 211 US soldiers are saved,
it comes at a high cost.
Over 300 Nisei soldiers are killed or wounded.
After the rescue, General John Dahlquist
orders the 100th/442nd to assemble.
- But literally, there's only a fraction
of the number of men who normally make up a regiment
because they were wounded, they had been killed.
- He demanded to know why everybody in the unit
hadn't turned out for this ceremony.
And the lieutenant colonel had to turn to him,
and he had tears in his eyes as he said this.
He said, "General, these are all the men I have."
- When I think of these guys who never came home,
it's real hard because they didn't volunteer
because they had a country that was backing them up.
But they volunteered for a purpose of proving themselves
to this country that the Japanese American
is just as good American as anybody else, if not better.
- [Narrator] In spring 1945,
Nisei soldiers are involved in another history-making rescue
as they chase the Nazis into Germany.
But for years, their part in this story is never told.
Ed Ichiyama is a forward observer
with the artillery unit.
He has been in some of the war's fiercest fighting,
saw his three friends die
in the rescue of the Lost Battalion,
but nothing prepares him
for what he's about to see in Germany.
- We're traipsing along the countryside of Dachau.
Then all of a sudden, we came across hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of prisoners
in the black-and-white prison garb,
shaven heads, sunken eyes, hollow cheeks,
mere skeletons roaming aimlessly around the countryside.
- As the approach, they would see lumps in the snow,
and they thought they were logs covered by snow
until they got closer and they realized they weren't logs.
They were bodies.
(somber music)
And what they soon realize is that what this installment was
was a satellite of Dachau.
- I still remember the stench,
the stench of that concentration camp.
Indescribable, indescribable.
And you think to yourself, "Gee, how can a human being
"be so inhumane to somebody, another human being?"
- [Narrator] Ichiyama and his fellow Nisei soldiers
help rescue about 3,000 Jewish prisoners
from Dachau sub-camps,
coming face to face with Hitler's Holocaust.
- One of the greatest ironies of World War II
happened there in Dachau
when members of a persecuted minority,
the Japanese Americans,
reaching out to help members of another persecuted minority,
the Jewish people of Europe.
And what are our crimes?
One for being Jewish and one for being Japanese.
- [Narrator] This unique connection
lasts their entire lives.
- After the war, they would have mini reunions
where they would link up with some of the Jewish survivors
that they had liberated.
They were called sushi and bagel reunions.
It had a profound, lasting,
deeply impactful effect
on those guys that saw man's inhumanity to man.
Real inhumanity.
- [Narrator] Just over a week after the liberation
of Dachau, the Nazis are defeated.
- The flags of freedom fly all over Europe.
- [Narrator] On May 8th, 1945,
the Allies officially declare victory in Europe.
But as the Nisei soldiers return home,
they discover their fight is not yet over.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The war abroad is over
and the Nisei soldiers return home to the US.
- They were welcomed back on the White House lawn
by President Harry Truman.
And he said to them, "You fought not only the enemy
"but prejudice, and you won."
They came back as heroes, as winners.
But they were seen as Japanese
and, by some, as Japs.
- [Narrator] Despite their sacrifices,
many Japanese Americans continue to face prejudice,
like the Masudas.
Their son, Kazuo, served with the 442nd
while his family was incarcerated.
He died fighting for his country,
and still his family is not welcomed home after the war.
- You were met with nothing but hate speech,
threats of bodily harm.
The Army realized that this was a PR fiasco,
that one of its own fallen heroes,
his own family couldn't even move back home.
So, they sent out a contingent of Army officers
to have a medal ceremony for the Masuda family.
- [Narrator] Later, a young captain
gives a moving speech to the crowd.
- [Ronald] Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach
is all of one color.
- And it's the story of the Masuda family's sacrifice
that, decades later,
will begin to right the wrongs of World War II.
- 40 years after the war, in the late-'80s,
there is a bill working its way through the US Congress.
- HR 442, an act to-
- A bill that would provide
a presidential apology and monetary reparations
for Japanese Americans who had been incarcerated
during World War II.
- [Narrator] Rudy Tokiwa and the Nisei soldiers
are part of the movement to get the bill passed by Congress,
a huge feat, but it still needs the president's signature.
- The president of the United States
was none other than Ronald Reagan,
whose own administration
had been fighting against the redress bill,
both in the courts as well as in the legislature.
So, many of us, myself included,
felt there was no way on God's green earth
that Ronald Reagan would sign
this particular piece of legislation.
- [Narrator] But then the president is reminded
of his personal connection to the Masuda family,
as he was the young captain who gave the speech
all those years ago.
- My fellow Americans, we gather here today
to right a grave wrong. (audience applauding)
- President Ronald Reagan apologized
on behalf of the American people
and officially signed the Civil Liberties Act.
America was made whole.
Its ideals were made true.
- [Narrator] And yet racism also prevents the Nisei soldiers
from being truly recognized for their own heroism
for more than 50 years.
(audience applauding)
- Hajiro.
Hayashi.
Inouye.
- [Narrator] In 2000, 20 Japanese American soldiers
from World War II are finally awarded the Medal of Honor,
the nation's highest award.
- The 100th Battalion/442nd, as a unit,
for its time and service and its size
is not one of the most,
it's the most decorated unit in the Army history
and in military history of this country.
- [Narrator] But the legacy of the Nisei soldiers
of World War II lasts long after they are gone.
- They said, "We have shed our blood on the battlefield
"and we have proven our loyalty,
"and we're no longer willing
"to be second-class citizens anymore."
They went into business, they went into law,
they became politicians.
- Sakae Takahashi co-founds a bank
to serve the needs of Japanese Americans
and joins the push for Hawaiian statehood in 1959,
eventually serving as a state senator.
- [Narrator] Hawaii's half-century-old request
for statehood is granted.
- [Narrator] Daniel Inouye becomes
the first Japanese American in Congress
and the second-longest-serving senator in history.
- I think it's fair to say that Danny Inouye
was perhaps my earliest political inspiration.
- We are an imperfect nation.
The Nisei soldiers who fought, died, and bled,
their families who persevered in those horrible camps,
they, in a sense, redeemed us.
- [Man] You volunteered because you wanted to prove
that Americanism is a matter of the mind and the heart.
- There's been a rising tide of outright violence
directed at Asians and Asian Americans in this country.
And I think it's vitally important
that Americans more broadly begin to understand
the contributions that all these different groups have made
to the fabric of this society.
(reverent uplifting music)
- The story of the Nisei soldiers of World War II
is a story that belongs to all Americans.
It's not just a great Japanese American story,
it's a great American story.
It's the story of sons of immigrants
who came and who made this their nation beyond dispute.
And it is a reminder of the very best
of what America can produce, regardless of one's background.