Within months after Pearl Harbor, 110,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly "evacuated" from the West Coast, losing their jobs, their property, and their homes. In less than a year, they were "relocated" and incarcerated in desolate camps throughout the West, Southwest, and South. Yet, incredibly, thousands of young men from the camps joined the Army, to defend the country that had denied them their rights.

This is the dramatic story of the segregated Japanese American 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team - and what its soldiers of the 100th/442nd had "more than earned the right to be called just Americans, not Japanese Americans."

Through interviews with surviving veterans, archival research, maps, and photos, Robert Asahina has reconstructed these fateful events of October-November 1944. From breathless battle scenes, masterfully handled in all their detail; to the unbreakable bonds of friendship in the field; to heart-wrenching stories of loss and discrimination on the mainland and in Hawaii, Just Americans tells the story of what Gen. George C. Marshall called the "most decorated unit in American military history for its size and length of service." It is also the story of soldiers in combat who were fighting a greater battle at home - a struggle that continues for minority groups today - over what it means to be an American.

Hard cover. 339 pages. Includes black and white archive photographss.