Going for Broke

Hosted by Senator Daniel K. Inouye, and narrated by George Takei.

On February 19, 1942, approximately sixty days after Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Imperial Forces of Japan, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 forcibly removing 110,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry, the majority of them American citizens, to "relocation camps." With their families imprisoned behind barbed wire, many young men volunteered from America's concentration camps to prove their loyalty and defend the United States in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. Thousands from Hawaii, just like other young American men of their time, also volunteered. Serving in several segregated units--the 100th Infantry Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service (M.I.S.)--these men fought boldly and valiantly for their country, the United States of America. The 100th/442nd R.C.T. became the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in U.S. military history, while the M.I.S. is credited for saving countless lives and for shortening the war in the Pacific. It is these struggles that enabled the freedoms and civil rights for future generations of Japanese Americans and all Americans. These stories of bravery and courage must never be forgotten. It's all here in Going For Broke; they believed in America when America no longer believed in them.

Extra Features:

• Strange class reunion
• The "Yellow Peril" meets "Jim Crow"
• Japanese relocation, (U.S. government film)