They were doing the same things as other Americans, working, playing, raising families. Until the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Then, suddenly, they were not Americans, they were people of Japanese descent, and suspected of divided loyalties or worse.
The United States ran concentration camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II, a story retold in great depth by Richard Reeves in Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II.Reeves joined us in May 2015; we revisit the interview here.