Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II

In Double Victory, Takaki examines the many contributions of America's minorities to the war effort, celebrating the work of Mexican farm laborers and Anglo women welders, of Navajo code talkers and Filipino foot soldiers, who proclaimed themselves to be "men, not houseboys," of Chinese American combat nurses and Asian Indian gunners. These men and women, Takaki writes, made extraordinary sacrifices in their battle against enemies without and enemies within. Although their efforts were not always appreciated at the time, they helped set in motion the struggle for civil rights that would explode two decades later. Takaki's book is a welcome and much needed entry in the recent literature on the World War II era, and it merits the widest possible audience. --Gregory McNamee

Product Description
North Americas preeminent multicultural historian scrutinizes the contradictions of the good war andthrough the stories and voices of ordinary, ethnically diverse Americansreveals how World War II represented a double victory against fascism abroad and prejudice at home.

In successive chapters, Takaki focuses on the abuses and injustices resulting from the exclusion of minority workers from defense industries, the Jim Crow statutes that segregated African Americans at home and in the army, the unemployment and poverty that greeted returning Native Americans veterans, the hostility towards Mexican Americans for the "zoot suits" worn by their youth, the laws prohibiting longtime Asian laborers from becoming citizens because they were not "white," the forced internment of Japanese Americans, the callousness that turned away Jewish refugees from our ports. He then examines the controversy surrounding the motivations for using the atomic bomb against civilian population centers.

Yet the author also reveals the many advances that the war delivered to ethnic groups. Minority communities contributed tens of thousands of soldiers who fought valiantly on the battlefront and earned the respect and friendship of their white compatriots. The shortage of domestic workers forced reluctant industries to hire non-white workers. A. Philip Randolph and his colleagues launched the civil rights movement by organizing a march on Washington, which was cancelled after Roosevelt signed executive order 8802, abolishing discrimination in government and defense jobs. (The order was largely symbolic, since it was hardly enforced, but in retrospect it was clearly a major first step.) And the sanguine final chapter demonstrates that, although the struggle for civil rights suffered setbacks during the next two decades, there really was no turning back.

Focusing one's attention on the domestic issues of the time, of course, does not minimize the contribution of our armed forces abroad; if anything, such a discussion emphasizes that the fight against prejudice was equally important: both because non-white citizens were serving our country and because our enemies used examples of American intolerance as propaganda against the U.S.--and because it was morally necessary. Although written by an academic, this concise book is both fascinating and approachable; it should be read by all Americans who care about freedom. It's a reminder of why we fought what Studs Terkel called "the Good War": the "double victory" of increasing liberty not only for Europeans and Asians but for every American as well.


Takaki Does it Again   August 8, 2002
Neel Aroon (Lexington, KY United States)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

I've liked previous Takaki books such as From A Different Shore, A Different Mirror and Iron Cages. Double Victory continues in that tradition. Takaki focuses on different ethnic groups and how they reacted to American involvement in WWII. It deals with the desire of minorities to be treated as equals with them seeing WWII as a chance to prove their loyality to America through war. Takaki deals with African-Americans, Native Americans, Chicanos, Asian Americans and Jewish Americans. Takaki deals with what these groups hoped to deal with their invovlement in WWII. Takaki also deals with the the treatment of Japanese Americans from being labeled as enemies and being interned. Takaki focuses on racial discrimination in the war effort from military factories to military service showing how their racial barriers were overocome. Takaki ends by showing how the gains made during WWII by minorities continued in the post WWII years helping to launch the civil right movement.


What Zinn did for AmHist; Takaki does for WWII   December 10, 2000
Larry Mark (nyc)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful

The story u dont here from Brokaw. Takaki, a third generation American of Japanese heritage and Berkeley prof, teaches that no one ever made a film about the race riots that occurred during WWII, you never hear about the Mexican Americans who harvested crops to supply the troops. You never hear speeches about the Jim Crow rules, the Navajo, black, Korean, Filipino, Indian, German, Japanese, and other Americans during the great War. This book fills in the gaps, with stories about Korean Americans who fought (one fifth of Los Angeles' Korean population joined the California National Guard) in the Tiger Brigade/Manghokun, the Sikhs and Hindus duing WWII, the 550,000 Jewish Americans who joined the US Armed Forces and earned 26,000 Purple hearts (out of 4.5 Million american Jews, they were proportionately more than any other group), the African Americans who liberated Buchenwald, and the Nisei Japanese American soldiers who liberated Dachau, and more