We left Japanese American Concentration Camps to serve in the U.S. Army. After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government incorrectly and selectively corralled Japanese American families on the West Coast into scattered concentration camps in the wastelands and deserts of California, Arizona, Arkansas, and Wyoming. Incredibly, after a few months U.S. Army recruiters came to the camps to recruit youthful incarcerated citizens ostensibly to serve in the army. Even as our families remained interned behind guard towers during the duration of the war, 165 young men from Uptown-St. Mary's volunteered to serve in the Army..
A plaque in the Chapel of St. Mary’s Mission engraved with the names of 156 Niseis (second generation of Japanese immigrants) from the church who volunteered for service in the U.S. Army, mostly while they were confined in the concentration camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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