Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, nearly 120,000 Americans were imprisoned by the federal government. They had broken no laws — indeed, many had gone to great lengths to demonstrate their loyalty to the United States. Their crime was that they were of Japanese ancestry.

I Am an American chronicles the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, focusing on the experiences of one high school student, Shi Nomura, and relating them to the larger events of the period—from the history of Japanese immigration to the political and military events of the war and the outstanding service of Japanese American soldiers. As he did in his award-winning book Children of the Dust Bowl, Jerry Stanley tells a story that is at once intimate and broadly historical, and draws a powerful portrait of wartime America and the injustice done to Japanese Americans.

From the back of the Scholastic edition