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BEYOND LOYALTY: The Story of a Kibei. By Minoru Kiyota. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1997. xii, 252 pp. (Photos.) US$24.95, paper ISBN 0-8248-1939-X.
IN 1942, as a result of the United States Executive Order 9066, "all persons of Japanese ancestry" on the West Coast, citizens and noncitizens alike 110,000 in number - were interned in "relocation centers." Their experiences affected the internees in significant and often devastating ways. The impact on their lives varied depending on generation, nationality, gender and class. At the level of the individual, cultural identity, political ideology and personal beliefs generated further differences in interpretation of the experience and responses to the consequences.
Beyond Loyalty is an autobiography of Minoru Kiyota, a kibei (Americanborn but Japan-educated offspring of Japanese parents), whose youthful years were distorted by the internment experience. Because of his early education in Japan, he identified strongly with Japanese culture while his American citizenship and upbringing firmly...