In recent years the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Battalion have finally received some of recognition they deserve as heroes of World War II. The 442nd was an a unit comprised completely of Asian Americans, mostly Japanese Americans from Hawaii. The unit is the most highly decorated regiment in history.
On February 1, 1943, following the successful training of the 100th Battalion, permission was granted to form what became the 442nd. In May of that year, training of the approximately 4000 troops took place at Camp Shelby in Mississippi. At first there was a lot of tension between the mainland (or kotonks for the “noise made by the coal which these "yardbirds" had had to shovel as members of housekeeping detachments at Army posts; others said it was the sound made by their heads when Island boys knocked them together”) and Hawaiian Japanese Americans (or buddhaheads that comes from “The Japanese word "buta" means pig, and "buddhahead" may be a corruption of "buta head," but it was generally thought that the term had been imported from Hawaii where it was applied to Japanese Buddhist priests who shaved their heads, and, by extension, to the Japanese residents generally”) because of various difference such as speaking barriers where Hawaiian Japanese tended to speak pidgin English while mainland Japanese would speak more traditional English. This fighting halted however after the Hawaiian boys visited one of the internment camps. Busses took the troops to visit both the Rohwer and Jerome camps. Suddenly the Hawaiian boys had a better understanding of what the mainlanders had been through and thus created a more united team. Katsugo Miho of the 522nd Field Artillery, 442nd RCT said of the trip “the reception we got from the people in camp was simply astounding. Putting up a cheerful front to us. I don’t remember any of them crying to us or g
iving us a sad story. All of them were going out of their way to encourage us. When you reflect on it, it should have been the other way around. We should have been encouraging them.”
Following their training, the 442nd was was shipped off to Europe where they participated in several missions. They helped to rescue the “lost Battalion” in France, suffering over 800 casualties (including 121 fatalities) to save a mere 211 of their white counterparts. They also were the first to reach the Dachau concentration camp and help to release those who were imprisoned within the fences. The following year the 442nd returned home and was recognized by President Truman where he said “You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice-and you have won.”
Truman's words may have been powerful, but they were only partially true. The fact was that following their return home, despite all of their heroic efforts, they were still discriminated against as members of the 442nd were given honors far less then what they had deserved, if given at all. Only one medal of 
Honor was initially awarded to the members of the 442nd. It took until the year 2000 when 20 additional Japanese Americans were awarded the Medal of Honor, many of whom posthumously. Also in 1999, the Go For Broke National Education Center honored the Japanese Americans who served during World War II with a monument in Little Tokyo, Los Angels. “Go For Broke” refers to the 442nd's motto that comes from a pidgin phase that basically means to risk it all typically while gambling.
Also recently, Hollywood has tried to bring the story of the 442nd to a larger American audience. Plays, documentaries, television and several movies have been made to tell the stories of these brave men. A recent adaptation is titled Only the Brave (2005) and follows the stories of several different men from prior to the war, through their time of service, to ultimately their return home (for some).
The 442nd did many things that relate to the greater Asian American community. Perhaps most importantly, they stood up and fought for a country that had not been the most welcoming to them. They fought and tried to prove that Japanese and Asian Americans were in fact American and that deserved to be treated as such. Its is great to finally see that they are starting to be remembered for all that they have done.
Jerry Knaack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29
http://www.goforbroke.org/history/history_historical.asp
http://nisei.hawaii.edu/page/442
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:RP3d3yhYgYQJ:www.ajawarvets.org/campaigns/campaign_01_introduction.cfm+kotonks&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
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