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Concentration Camps on the Home Front: Japanese Americans in the House of Jim Crow. By John Howard. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Pp. xii, 344. Introduction, epilogue, acknowledgments, notes, index. $29.00).
In his Concentration Camps on the Home Front, John Howard applies the methodologies of gender and sexuality studies to the history of Japanese- American internment (1942-1945), with a special focus on the two camps located in southeastern Arkansas. His rationale for revisiting the topic of internment is clear-cut: existing scholarly works on the detention centers typically reflect a "male-dominated, top-down approach" (p. 11). These studies have lauded the patriotism of Japanese Americans in spite of the oppressive conditions of the camps, the community's ability to maintain traditional family values during imprisonment, and the life stories of second-general American citizens (Nisei). In contrast, Howard's book focuses on the experience of women, first-generation immigrants (Issei), and individuals who resisted sexual and...