Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up, I often told neighborhood kids about my father’s internment, what he remembered of Camp Crystal City, Texas, where he spent three years, age seven to ten, going to school, swimming, playing in nearby orchards, and other normal experiences—except for the barbed wire, guard towers, and lack of freedom. Later, I wanted to know more and learned that what happened to my family can happen to anybody else if they are feared. More recently, families have been ripped apart, children put in cages, and countless people treated as less than human. My book reminds us of what can happen when fear leads to calling those among us enemies or worse. 


I wrote...

Enemies among Us: The Relocation, Internment, and Repatriation of German, Italian, and Japanese Americans during the Second World War

By John E. Schmitz,

Book cover of Enemies among Us: The Relocation, Internment, and Repatriation of German, Italian, and Japanese Americans during the Second World War

What is my book about?

Recent decades have drawn more attention to the United States’ treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Few people…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Home Front U.S.A.: America During World War II

John E. Schmitz Why did I love this book?

As part of the American History Series, I thoroughly enjoyed Winkler’s book because it provides solid general coverage of America’s “arsenal of democracy”—the mobilization for war, along with an examination of our society at war including mood and morale along with shortages and controls; the book also has a chapter dealing with outsiders and ethnic groups and finally the last chapter is dedicated to politics and war. 

I find the book provides excellent coverage of major home front issued during the war. I would highly recommend to any reader who wants to know more about the United States home front during the war.

By Allan M. Winkler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Home Front U.S.A. as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New scholarship on World War II continues to broaden our understanding. With each passing year we know more about the triumphs and the tragedies of America's involvement in the momentous conflict. Tapping into this greater awareness of the accomplishments of both soldiers and civilians and a better recognition of the consequences of decisions made, Allan Winkler presents the third edition of his highly popular series volume.

Informed by the latest historical literature and featuring many new thoughtfully chosen photographs, the third edition of Home Front U.S.A. continues to ponder the question of "the good war," the moral implications of the…


Book cover of For the Duration...: The United States Goes to War, Pearl Harbor-1942

John E. Schmitz Why did I love this book?

I recommend Kennett’s book because it really dives into those first few weeks and months after Pearl Harbor. I found it a fascinating tale of how a nation mobilizes and can if it has the energy and will, go from a peacetime to a wartime footing pretty quickly.

I would also recommend this book because it makes use of sources such as comic books and soap operas alongside the more traditional archival documents and oral histories. I highly recommend, a fun read, too!

By Lee Kennett,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked For the Duration... as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Rich in detail from archives, interviews, and sweeping research, this book surveys the first six months of the United States war effort after entering World War II


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Book cover of Songbird

Songbird By Laci Barry Post,

It's 1943, and World War II has gripped the nation, including the Stilwell family in Jacksonville, Alabama. Rationing, bomb drills, patriotism, and a changing South barrage their way of life. Neighboring Fort McClellan has brought the world to their doorstep in the form of young soldiers from all over the…

Book cover of No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II

John E. Schmitz Why did I love this book?

Among historians, we know there are few better as academics and storytellers than Goodwin. I love her writing style, and the coverage of both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt is unmatched. Small wonder that it was a NYT bestseller! I think any reader would enjoy this magisterial work. 

By Doris Kearns Goodwin,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked No Ordinary Time as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A chronicle of the US and its leaders during the period when modern America was created. It narrates the interrelationships between the inner workings of the Roosevelt White House and the destiny of the US, painting a portrait that fills in a historical gap in the story of America under Roosevelt.


Book cover of Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War

John E. Schmitz Why did I love this book?

I love Fussell’s books, and this one is my favorite. Fussell served and fought in World War II, and any reader might recognize his name as being interviewed and used in numerous films and documentaries, including Band of Brothers.

The book is very satirical, and chapter titles like Chickenshit, an Anatomy, The Real War will never get in the Books, and Drinking far too much, Copulating too little give some idea about Fussell’s background as a writer, literary scholar, and philosopher of sorts—and he has won numerous writing awards—I cannot think Fussell would disappoint any interested reader!  

By Paul Fussell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wartime as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

World War II has been romanticized almost beyond recognition by "the sentimental, the loony patriotic, the ignorant, and the bloodthirsty". In this study, Paul Fussell goes behind the familiar diplomacy and heroics of history to examine the blunders, petty tyrannies, inconveniences, and deprivations that are many British and American people's memory of the War. There are lively sections on the role of drinking, tobacco, and sex in the war and on the home front; on propaganda; about writers and magazines who recorded the war or who attempted to keep aloft literary standards in a difficult time; on wartime slang and…


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Book cover of A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France

A Long Way from Iowa By Janet Hulstrand,

This memoir chronicles the lives of three generations of women with a passion for reading, writing, and travel. The story begins in 1992 in an unfinished attic in Brooklyn as the author reads a notebook written by her grandmother nearly 100 years earlier. This sets her on a 30-year search…

Book cover of The American People in World War II: Freedom from Fear, Part Two

John E. Schmitz Why did I love this book?

Kennedy’s book is part of the Oxford series on American history, and as such, I know that any writer’s work must meet high standards, and I was not disappointed by Kennedy’s book. 

I love this book as it is both readable to any non-historian, but it provides a great deal of depth and detail along with amazing storytelling. It came as no surprise to me that this book won the Pulitzer Prize—it is worth the read!  

By David M. Kennedy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The American People in World War II as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Even as the New Deal was coping with the Depression, a new menace was developing abroad. Exploiting Germany's own economic burdens, Hitler reached out to the disaffected, turning their aimless discontent into loyal support for his Nazi Party. In Asia, Japan harbored imperial ambitions of its own. The same generation of Americans who battled the Depression eventually had to shoulder arms in another conflict that wreaked worldwide destruction, ushered in the nuclear age, and forever changed their way of life and their country's relationship to the rest of the world.
The American People in World War II--the second installment of…


Explore my book 😀

Enemies among Us: The Relocation, Internment, and Repatriation of German, Italian, and Japanese Americans during the Second World War

By John E. Schmitz,

Book cover of Enemies among Us: The Relocation, Internment, and Repatriation of German, Italian, and Japanese Americans during the Second World War

What is my book about?

Recent decades have drawn more attention to the United States’ treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Few people realize, however, the extent of the country’s relocation, internment, and repatriation of German and Italian Americans, who were interned in greater numbers than Japanese Americans. The United States also assisted other countries, especially in Latin America, in expelling “dangerous” aliens, primarily Germans.

In Enemies among Us John E. Schmitz examines the causes, conditions, and consequences of America’s selective relocation and internment of its own citizens and enemy aliens, as well as the effects of internment on those who experienced it. Looking at German, Italian, and Japanese Americans, Schmitz analyzes the similarities in the U.S. government’s procedures for those they perceived to be domestic and hemispheric threats, revealing the consistencies in the government’s treatment of these groups, regardless of race.

Reframing wartime relocation and internment through a broader chronological perspective and considering policies in the wider Western Hemisphere, Enemies among Us provides new conclusions as to why the United States relocated, interned, and repatriated both aliens and citizens considered enemies.

Book cover of Home Front U.S.A.: America During World War II
Book cover of For the Duration...: The United States Goes to War, Pearl Harbor-1942
Book cover of No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II

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