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It is no small irony, historian Ronald Takaki observes,
that the armed struggle for democracy abroad
"was accompanied by a disregard for our nation's
declaration that 'all men are created equal'" in
the form of institutional racism of many kinds,
from the segregation of African American units
to the imprisonment of Japanese Americans and
the refusal to grant asylum to Jewish refugees.
In Double
Victory, Takaki examines the many contributions
of America's minorities to the war effort,
celebrating the work of Mexican farm laborers
and Anglo women welders, of Navajo code talkers
and Filipino foot soldiers, who proclaimed
themselves to be "men, not houseboys," of
Chinese American combat nurses and Asian Indian
gunners. These men and women, Takaki writes,
made extraordinary sacrifices in their battle
against enemies without and enemies within.
Although their efforts were not always
appreciated at the time, they helped set in
motion the struggle for civil rights that would
explode two decades later. Takaki's book is a
welcome and much needed entry in the recent
literature on the World War II era, and it
merits the widest possible audience. |
