After Camp illuminates various aspects of a central but unexplored area of American history: the midcentury Japanese American experience. A vast and ever-growing literature exists, first on the entry and settlement of Japanese immigrants in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, then on the experience of the immigrants and their American-born children during World War II. Yet the essential question, “What happened afterwards?” remains all but unanswered in historical literature.

Excluded from the wartime economic boom and scarred psychologically by their wartime ordeal, the former camp inmates struggled to remake their lives in the years that followed. This volume consists of a series of case studies that shed light on essential postwar various developments such as resettlement nationwide, the question of assimilation, and the relations between Japanese Americans and other minority groups, including Mexican Americans, Jewish Americans and African Americans.

Purchase After Camp from the Museum Store >>

Read our interview with Greg Robinson about this book on our DiscoverNikkei.org site >>