Summer Research Series: Exploring Firsthand Perspectives on Japanese American Incarceration

That’s the core of what Aristidis Stefanis ’27, a double major in history and political science, has discovered through his ongoing research, which began this past summer.

Starting with his own curiosity on the subject, Stefanis sought to shed new light on Japanese American incarceration during World War II and how the U.S government responded to Pearl Harbor. After Pearl Harbor, he explained, internment policies targeted Japanese immigrants and multiracial Japanese families often on a case-by-case basis, regardless of their ancestry or family composition.

By digging deeper into firsthand perspectives of multiracial Japanese American families who lived through it, Stefanis quickly realized that what the government considered “American” went beyond citizenship status, incorporating multiple layers of criteria such as gender, marital status and family structure into the internment decision.

“These were Japanese immigrants and their families who were self-made, took inspiration from the work-ethic of people in the U.S., and established themselves fully as members of American society, but it didn’t matter,” Stefanis said. “It brings up questions about nationalism and loyalty, [and] what it means to be an American, who is an American.”

He compared the families’ perspectives to census records, marriage records and other government documents to better understand how they were classified by the state, how the internment policies were applied, and who they impacted. 

“It’s an important historical conversation to have – it’s not even required to teach this in schools across the U.S. – so it’s important to preserve this history, and to talk about it,” Stefanis said.

As his work continues throughout the academic year, Stefanis is drawing his own conclusions about what these insights mean, particularly for what loyalty meant to the U.S back then. “It adds a layer to something that I believe should be a focal point for U.S history,” he added.

Putting these findings into broader context was a crucial part of the process for Stefanis, said Associate Professor of History Dr. Violetta Ravagnoli, one of his faculty mentors this past summer. He’s been learning the “historian’s craft,” she said – understanding how difficult it is to document history from the bottom up, and seeing how peoples’ perspectives from the past can help historians reframe historical context.

“The stories he has uncovered are complicated. People move across identities and communities in ways that categories such as ‘Japanese,’ ‘American,’ ‘Asian,’ or even ‘multiracial’ cannot always adequately capture,” she said. “Each individual story contributes to our understanding of the broader, more abstract concepts of race, citizenship, assimilation, and nationhood."

Tapping into history with a Logan Scholarship

Stefanis was selected for Emmanuel’s 2026 Logan Scholarship, which set his experience in motion at the start of this summer. Named for the late Professor Emeritus F. Donald Logan, the scholarship was created to connect promising historians at the College with a unique opportunity to pursue a completely original research project.  “For an undergraduate, it’s an invaluable opportunity to see how historical knowledge itself is produced,” Dr. Ravagnoli said.

In addition to a comprehensive crash course on what it’s like to conduct original scholarly research, the scholarship also results in a final product that the Logan Scholars develop. Stefanis will be working toward a peer-reviewed scholarly work and will present his findings at the New England Historical Association (NEHA) conference in Spring 2027.