Thesis
Despite Japanese Americans being sent to internment camps in Hawaii and on the United States mainland after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 during World War II, the all Nisei (people born in the U.S. whose parents emigrated from Japan) 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the U.S. Army took a stand to reduce racial discrimination by fighting for American democracy and freedom. Their actions on the battlefield and lobbying Congress contributed to passage of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, known as the McCarran-Walter Act, allowing Japanese Americans to become naturalized U.S. citizens.
George Takei and U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye about Japanese American internment and soldiers. (Going For Broke, 2006)
Congressional Gold Medal. (Smithsonian, 2014)