Buddhism, initially seen as a threat to national security, gained acceptance through the patriotism and sacrifice of its adherents in the Second World War.

On a late August evening in Arizonas Poston Relocation Center, in the hot summer of 1944, the Reverend Bunyu Fujimura of the Buddhist Mission of North America had not yet been cleared of charges of espionage.

Just 34 years old, and so slight that he was called pakkaispareribs, in his native tonguehe looked in danger of disappearing into his flowing robes.

Nonetheless he was the leader of his congregation, and so an unpleasant but necessary task fell to him: delivering a sermon in memory of two Japanese American Buddhist servicemen recently killed in action. In this improvised liturgical setting of a desert internment camp, the priest hoped to provide a religious context in which to consider lives given in defense of a nation that had already taken everything else away.

At a time when elected officials tweet #StandUpAgainstIslam and warn of a Muslim invasion, its worth remembering that the trials brought upon religious minorities in America during international conflict have a deep and troubling history. Yet their story is not merely one of suspicion and suppression. The experience of Japanese Buddhists during World War II suggests that minority religions ultimately influence majority culture in ways often forgotten. Supposedly foreign beliefs often play an outsized role in pushing the nation to live up to its ideals.

The Secret History of the Underground Railroad

73 years ago this week, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the evacuation of all of those of Japanese descent from the West Coast to ten war relocation centersoften called concentration camps before that term came to have other connotations.

For the most part, the wartime fears that led to the relocation of Japanese-born immigrants and their American-born children were justified on racial rather than religious grounds. Those forced to leave behind homes, farms, and businesses in states bordering the Pacific were not of a single faith. There were Buddhists among them, and many maintained Shinto rituals that provided spiritual connections to their homeland, but there were also Christians of various denominations, as well as those with no particular affiliation.

Religion was not ignored, however. When the FBI set about compiling its list of suspect individuals after the attack on Pearl Harbor, they naturally included members of various American Nazi parties and groups with political ties to Japan. Yet they also paid particular attention to Buddhist priests.

J. Edgar Hoovers Custodial Detention List used a classification system designating the supposed risk of individuals and groups on an ABC scale, with an A ranking assigned to those deserving greatest scrutiny. Ordained Buddhists like Reverend Fujimura were designated A1, those whose apprehension was considered a matter of urgent concern.

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