Free to Die for Their Country: The
Story of the Japanese American Draft
Resisters in World War II (Chicago
Series in Law and Society) by Eric L.
Muller
Excellent Contrib To Amer. History And Profiles Of Courage
One of the Washington Posts Top Nonfiction Titles of 2001
In the spring of 1942, the federal government forced West Coast Japanese
Americans into detainment camps on suspicion of disloyalty. Two years
later, the government demanded even more, drafting them into the same
military that had been guarding them as subversives. Most of these
Americans complied, but Free to Die for Their Country is the first book to
tell the powerful story of those who refused. Based on years of research

and personal interviews, Eric L. Muller re-creates the emotions and events
that followed the arrival of those draft notices, revealing a dark and
complex chapter of Americas history.
Personal Review: Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the
Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II (Chicago
Series in Law and Society) by Eric L. Muller
I heard about this book in a seminar in Seattle on Japanese-American
internees during WWII. I immediately wanted to get it. Some hint about
Japanese-American CO's, who were imprisoned just near Seattle, along
with Quakers? I had to find out!
This is a well researched book, copiously footnoted, with extensive primary
and secondary sources. Better yet, Muller is a good author. Don't always
get that with a good research non-fiction work. He had me interested,
wanting to find out more, hating to put the book down. Muller doesn't
simply come off as a bleeding-heart- he dispassionately relates the
experiences of the Japanese-Americans, and critiques their actions, with
both positive and negative assessments. Yet he manages to bring out in
the end how atrocious the actions were of our government- to take people,
strip them of their rights, deny them their basic rights as citizens, and then
call them to kill others, on the basis that they *are* citizens. He tells the
story of how they came to be in the camps, how the decisions were made
to put them in the draft (assisted greatly by the JACO, 2nd generation
Japanese who were willing to sell out their own people in order to gain
more respect from the American government), how and why some chose
to resist, and the long struggle that came from the results of those actions,
leading up to the present day.
There was one most excellent quote in the book. One judge, after the
internment camps are disbanded, writes how the constitution should
guarantee basic rights to everyone in our land- regardless of if they are
citizens or not. The parallels between the experiences of the Japanese-
Americans in WWII and those of another ethnicity today are chilling.
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