A collective autobiography"" of the Japanese-American community as a whole during the internment years, World War II, by an observer-actor-narrator, who in his clerical role both ministered to the community and participated in its trials. He characterizes the community as he knew it outside Seattle in 1940, the Issei (Japanese born) generation acceptant of everything American, the Nisei alienated. With war came the Tolan Committee hearings, abruptly terminated by the March 2, 1942 eviction order with-out due process or specific charge. Issei and Nisei were removed to ""assembly centers,"" then relocation projects for those who signed the loyalty oath, segregation centers for those who did not. The author gives an idea of life in the camps, and how it affected inmates (the Issei women thrived, their men did not). The author left the camps in 1944; his book is something of a professional footnote, apart from involvement, above rancor.