Quotes from Jan Jarboe Russell

His conclusion, preserved for posterity, was that the experiment of interning families of suspected nationalities—German, Japanese, Italians, and others—was a failure. Nonetheless,

The history of America is the history of overcoming hardships and that was never more true than during World War II.

Enemies are people whose stories you haven't yet heard and whose faces you haven't yet seen. —Irene Hasenberg Butter, Holocaust survivor, during an interview at her home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 13, 2013

Always along the way we have been able to meet the challenge of unfamiliar situations with confidence and the wise and patient guidance of parents and teachers,

The point, Nobu told Sumi, was to find some disciplined way to endure suffering without losing one's sense of identity, dignity, and purpose.

She reminded Sumi of the Japanese custom of gaman. Nobu spoke the ancient word as a charge to her daughter: to have gaman was to endure the unbearable with dignity and forbearance.

The only task he concentrated on, day by day, was keeping himself and his family alive. He knew the Nazis' goal: extermination. The only dignity he had left was in his ability to resist. On

The motto of Groton—cui servire est regnare, "to serve is to rule"—was part of his and Roosevelt's DNA. On

The paradox was that Roosevelt asked loyalty of a disenfranchised group of people—people like Ernie, who'd been stripped of their rights as Americans.

No one knew that better O'Rourke, Harrison, and others who worked in the camp and whose persistence and sense of fair play somewhat mitigated the injustice—except of course to the internees themselves, whose lives were torn asunder.

Both of our parents lived their lives practicing gaman—patience and resilience," said Nobusuke, the second-born son. "They never wasted anything—not food, time, or anger. Instead, they waited for things to work out.

June 28, 1940, Congress passed the Alien Registration Act, and Biddle decided to persuade Harrison, whom he knew from legal ties in Philadelphia, into public service. The act made it mandatory, for the first time in American history, for every alien living in the United States to register and be fingerprinted.

As they bore witness to their experiences behind barbed wire in Crystal City and to their brutal transport into war in Germany and Japan, the former internees did not ask why they were made to suffer but how could suffering be endured. The

The second phrase was gaman, which means to find some physical practice such as meditation, calligraphy, or the making of art that would help one persevere in the face of what seemed unbearable.

The key was to live moment to moment, not in the past nor in the future. I

Even as a child, I understood my family was a casualty of war. It could not be helped.

While internees had "first accepted with philosophical understanding the decision of their government," Ickes told Roosevelt that these imprisoned Americans, charged with no crimes, were now bitter. "I do not think that we can disregard the unnecessary creation of a hostile group right in our own territory." As

In the challenging desert terrain, internees raised livestock and produced enough vegetables to feed the entire camp. On-site

To undo mistakes is always harder than to create them originally, but we seldom have foresight," Eleanor told her husband. "Therefore, we have no choice but to try to correct our past mistakes." In

I began to tell myself that if I'd survived Bergen-Belsen, I could survive anything," said Irene. "I tried to focus not on what I'd lost, but what I had to gain. It was a struggle." In

Their shared loss went unsaid, but never unremembered. Sendai,

Through official news agencies, Japanese officials warned the population to avoid "unpleasant confrontations" and to act prudently, decorously, and with cooperation, "thereby displaying the true essence of the Yamato race." The

The Quakers were the only group in America that consistently opposed internment and offered protection for internees.

Mathias bore the immigrant's burden. He had one foot on one side of the ocean in Germany and the other in America, which made him an outsider in both places.