Evacuated, Drafted, Indicted 1942

George Fujii was interned at a relocation center in Poston, Arizona. Believing that Japanese Americans must be treated like citizens before they were asked to risk their lives in combat, he encouraged evacuees to resist the draft. Mr. Fujii and others like him were willing to defend their country but not until their basic civil rights had been restored. The Federal Government not only failed to respond to their demands, it indicted, prosecuted, and convicted them. The draft resisters also faced criticism by their own people, who felt that their actions would make it more difficult for them to be accepted back into American society at the end of the war.