Beyond Loyalty

Book excerpt: Beyond Loyalty is the powerful and inspiring story of a young man whose life and education were rudely disrupted by the U.S. government's imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Few Japanese Americans have written so frankly about the humiliation they felt during World War II. Moreover, Kiyota is perhaps the first "renunciant" to share publicly the mental anguish that led to and resulted from his decision to relinquish his U.S. citizenship. Further, as a "kibei nisei"--one of a small group of Japanese Americans who spent part of their childhood in Japan--Kiyota writes from the vantage point of an individual who is at home in two very different languages and cultures. Recent events such as the Gulf War have made it all too clear that there is still much to be learned about democracy's treatment of its ethnic minorities. By putting a human face on issues of constitutional rights that arise in time of crisis, this absorbing account deserves a wide readership.