SERVING OUR COUNTRY: Japanese American Women in the Military during World War II, by Brenda L. Moore. Rutgers University Press, 2003, $60 (cloth), $22 (paper).

Building on her previous studies of racial issues, gender issues and military sociology, Brenda L. Moore has analyzed and documented an unusual aspect of Japanese-American history. A veteran herself, this professor of the State University of New York (Buffalo) provides a reciprocal macro-micro study of assimilation, looking at in particular the effects that military service had on the lives of a handful of women.

Many studies and much reportage have already been available regarding immigration from Japan and assimilation of Japanese-Americans; Moore makes deft use not only of familiar works by Roger Daniels, Gary Okihiro and others, but also digs deep in archival materials. The macro treatment as background is handled with competence and originality, while the micro studies of the women she interviewed provide the more significant contribution to the fund of knowledge and understanding of the core subject.

This is also a study of the treatment of ethnic minorities by the Federal and local governments at times of national crisis. This issue, now widely discussed in and about the United States, increases the relevance of Moore's work, by giving perspective from which to approach this new-old subject.