The question of identity—national, ethnocultural, and religious—is central to Facing the Mountain. On the surface, the Japanese American experience during World War II pits them against the majority Americans—Anglo-Saxon, white, Protestant. Japanese Americans living in the US were othered racially, culturally, and maybe even politically; they were unified as “enemy aliens” in the eyes of some white Americans. Yet as the author explores this question, the reader learns about more complex gradations of identity within the Japanese American population as well.

American colonialist settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries promoted white Western European supremacy, suppressing the Indigenous population of the continent, forcibly importing enslaved Africans, looking down on incoming Southern Europeans, and restricting immigrating Slavs, European Jews, and East Asians. Legal hindrances, such as immigration restriction acts, and widespread nativism and racism were underpinned by pseudo-science focused on perceived racial differences in intelligence and behavior. Given this context, it is unfortunately not surprising that Japanese immigrants fleeing terrible economic conditions in late-19th and early-20th century Japan were seen as inferior because of their race. They were relegated to working long hours in menial labor jobs such as farming, rail, mining, and service industries. However, despite facing racism in the US, some first-generation Japanese Americans held prejudicial attitudes toward their own.