The US Postal Service this week unveiled a new postage stamp to honor the Japanese American 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
The stamp is one of 18 new stamps announced this week, including one commemorating the Lunar New Year and the Year of the Ox.
The stamp honoring 33,000 Japanese American veterans of World War II is based on a photograph of a Nissei soldier.
Go for Broke was the motto of these soldiers and the segregated units they served in.
“The issuance of this stamp is a culmination of over 15 years of work by Stamp Our Story campaign founders Fusa Takahashi, Aiko O. King, the late Chiz Ohira, and the many individuals who have helped over the years,” said Wayne Osako, co-chair of the Stamp Our Story campaign in a post on Facebook.
“These Japanese American men and women patriotically served in the U.S. Army during the war, despite the United States’ mass incarceration of their families, friends, and communities in concentration camps on American soil. Many of them enlisted from behind the barbed wire of the camps, seeking to contribute to the war effort anyway, and to prove their loyalty through service. They served amidst intense war hysteria and prejudice directed at them, and at the whole Japanese American community.”
The campaign for the stamp began in 2005. You can read about their campaign and more about the history of the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team on Niseistamp.org.
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