Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A perspective that situates a blight on U.S. history within a broader history around race and citizenship. Three years after the statement by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that lends the book its title, the Supreme Court ruled that Executive Order 9066—which sent more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent (most of them U.S. citizens) into what the government then termed concentration camps—did not violate the Constitution. Goldstone describes discussions of race at the time the Constitution was written, traces mid-19th-century Japan–U.S. relations, and shows the rising vitriol following the later arrival of Japanese laborers in America. The narrative describes campaigns by White supremacists, particularly in the American West, to limit access to immigration, birthright citizenship, union membership, property ownership, and naturalization and to generate a frenzy of anti-Asian hatred. Pivotal court cases challenging discrimination against Chinese and African Americans help readers understand the groundwork leading to Executive Order 9066. The author closes with a sober warning about the necessity of remaining vigilant in protecting democracy, particularly in light of recent Islamophobic rhetoric. This comprehensive yet concise and readable work adds value to the body of literature about the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II by showing how, far from being an aberration, these events “were inevitable byproducts of a nation that had spent a century either perpetuating or acquiescing to slander and bigotry.” An informed, persuasive overview of the environment leading to Japanese American incarceration. (bibliography, source notes, photograph and illustration credits, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Known for his detailed, well-researched books on racial injustice and the struggle for civil rights in the South, Goldstone now traces the causes and practical effects of prejudice against Asian Americans, particularly in nineteenth- and twentieth-century California, where politicians played upon voter opposition to Chinese and Japanese workers and their descendants gaining American citizenship. As the subtitle suggests, this book documents decades of racism and bigotry in public opinion, political discourse, and legal decisions upheld by the Supreme Court, which led to the incarceration of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans living in western states during WWII. Goldstone dismisses the government’s 1988 offer of $20,000-per-person reparations for survivors of the Japanese American incarceration camps as “a cheap price to pay to attempt to right a grievous wrong.” Students will find a great deal of information here, particularly on issues related to racial prejudice as a political tool and the limits of justice for those denied access to citizenship. A fact-filled, logically organized book, illustrated with reproductions of period photos, newspapers, posters, and other documents.

Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Goldstone's (Separate No More, rev. 3/21) Constitutional history of Asian immigration to the U.S. provides extensive context for the shameful Japanese American incarceration during WWII. Beginning with the founding of the United States, Goldstone traces the complex relationship between the nascent nation and the laborers it both exploits and rejects, from the first Chinese immigrants during the Gold Rush to the Japanese immigrants who joined the American workforce as sugarcane harvesters in Hawai'i, beginning in 1868. However, while they are the focus of the book, Japanese Americans are very rarely quoted, as much attention is given to the mostly white lawmakers who drew and redrew the lines between who could be American and who could not. Still, this is a well-researched and timely account that will engage young historians if presented in tandem with accounts of WWII incarceration that center Asian American voices and perspectives, such as Takei's They Called Us Enemy, rev. 9/19). Black-and-white photos appear throughout; back matter includes a bibliography and detailed source notes. (c) Copyright 2023. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.