During World War II, nearly 6,000 Nisei linguists served the United States in the Pacific and European theaters, but the stories of these Nisei linguists are largely unknown to the public at large, as well as their own families. On September 20, 2001, I attended a brown bag lunch at the Center for Biographical Research during which David Swift Jr., professor of sociology, UH-Manoa, spoke to an audience of nearly 30 professors, students, and community members, including one Nisei MIS linguist. Professor Swift just completed a research project focusing on the little known lives of the first class of Nisei students from the Military Intelligence Language School. Professor Swift's presentation primarily included the memories and stories of the sixteen MIS Nisei he was able to interview, some of whom were remembering their service out loud for the first time. After nine years of many difficulties Professor Swift has emerged with one of the few existing documentations of the lives of these men.

Questions from the audience demonstrated an interest in aspects of the MIS Nisei's service. What were their linguistic challenges? Only 3% of the students grew up with their parents' language, and they completed the one year course in six months in order to be sent out to the front lines sooner. Why aren't they better known? In addition to their cultural modesty, the secrecy around their work was officially required until 1972 and they all served as individuals attached to larger units, making it easy for their contributions to disappear in larger achievements.

It is unfortunate that it has taken 50 years for the important roles of these men to come to light, and that each time another MIS Nisei passes away, so does his story. However, I disagree with Professor Swift's suggestion that people may feel they already know enough about Japanese-Americans during World War II, with a great deal of information in existence about the 442nd RCT and internment camps. World War II will always be a topic of great interest to many people, both scholars and laypeople, and there will always be room and interest for "new" topic areas.

There are a number of interdisciplinary aspects of this presentation. Historians would be interested in this topic, especially those who focus on military studies and American modern history. Another area that applies is that of oral histories; the stories of the MIS Nisei are so much more vibrant in their own words. American studies and students of Asian-American culture would also be appropriately interested. In fact, most of the disciplines that would be interested in this topic would themselves be interdisciplinary in nature.

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL PERSPECTIVE

Relevant Library of Congress Subject Headings

Since Professor Swift had highlighted to relative anonymity of Nisei in the Military Intelligence Service, I approached the search with low expectations. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of information that was available through UH Voyager, from the general collections of all the UH system campuses to the Sinclair AV Center. The following Library of Congress Subject Headings were useful:

Relevant Courses in UH Manoa Curriculum
Although Professor Swift is a sociologist, none of his previous work focuses on this topic. In addition, none of the courses he is teaching this semester seem to include a forum to include his most recent area of research. However, there are a great number of courses available through other departments that may offer the opportunity for students to learn about the MIS Nisei. These include the following course numbers and titles:

Indexes and Databases
Unfortunately, all of the online databases and indexes I used lived up to the low expectations set by Professor Swift's presentation. I searched several yet found only one relevant article (Ano, Masaharu. "Loyal Linguists: Nisei of World War II Learned Japanese in Minnesota." Minnesota History 1977 45(7): 273-287. [F601 .M72] Relevant databases marked*). The databases and indexes I searched included:

* America: History & Life.* [online subscription database] Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio.
* Expanded Academic ASAP.[online subscription database] Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group.
* Ingenta. [online subscription database] Cambridge, MA: Ingenta Inc.
* MarciveWeb Docs.[online subscription database] San Antonio, TX: Marcive, Inc.

Internet Resources
Once again, I was nearly overwhelmed by the wealth of information available on the Military Intelligence Service on the Internet. There may be a number of reasons that this was the best source of information, including the fact that as a developing area of research and interest, it is best documented on the Internet. These sites illustrate the range of interest in the topic, from veterans and cultural organizations to personal pages. They are just a sample of the information available, and many offer links to additional information. All of the following sites were accessed on 26 October 2001:

* Honda, Harry. "U.S. Recruits Japanese-Americans as Linguists in Pacific War." Ohana Magazine online. January/February 2001. http://www.ohanamagazine.com/janfeb2001/feature.html
* Japanese American Nisei Veterans. Rae Ann S.N. Galinato. http://home.earthlink.net/~goodgali/
* JAVA of Washington, D.C. Home Page. Japanese-American Veterans' Association. http://www.javadc.org/
* Military Intelligence Service Oral History Project. National Japanese American Historical Society. http://www.nikkeiheritage.org/research/mis.html
* Nisei in the M.I.S. Russ Nakatsu, Kent School District, Washington. http://www.kent.wednet.edu/KSD/SJ/Nikkei/MIS_.html
* Secret Japanese-American Mission. Western/Pacific Literacy Network/CNN San Francisco Learning Resources. http://www.literacynet.org/cnnsf/secret/storyweek.html
* "War in the Pacific: MIS and the Nisei." HomeofHeroes.com. http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/nisei/index8_pacific.html

News Articles
The best sources of information were the Hawaii Newspaper Index and the Star-Bulletin and Advertiser web sites. Many articles and special editions were from June 2000 when the Military Intelligence Service was presented with the Presidential Unit Citation, as well as numerous other recent articles of local interest. An advantage of these sites is that they often include pictures of the Nisei, from the time and as they are today.

* Hawaii Newspaper Index. Hawaii State Library, 1989-
* The Honolulu Advertiser web site, October 1999-http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/search.html
* The Honolulu Star-Bulletin web site, August 1997- http://starbulletin.com/search.html
* Index to the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Honolulu: Office of Library Services, 1929-1994. [AI21 .H6 I5]

Relevant Books In Hamilton Library Collection
My next avenue of approach was the reference section in Hamilton Library. I checked all the books on the shelves and only found one bibliographic reference to the MIS, and it was a citation of the same Minnesota History article I had previously discovered. The call numbers I searched in the Reference section included D740, D743, D753 and D767. I then checked the stacks for other general books and found nothing. However, there were half a dozen relevant books on Japanese-Americans in World War II with call number 753.8, all of which had at least a chapter or section on the MIS. Most of the books were written in the 1990's, except for the appropriate bibliography and most relevant book, which focuses exclusively on the Nisei in the MIS, and are listed below.

* Harrington, Joseph Daniel. Yankee Samurai: The Secret Role of Nisei in America's Pacific Victory. Detroit: Pettigrew Enterprises, 1979. [D753.8 .H37]
* World War II from an American Perspective: An Annotated Bibliography. Santa-Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1983. [D743 .W67 1983]

I learned a great deal from my searches. First, many of the terms involved with the topic had several natural language variations. For example, in some sources, the abbreviation "MIS" worked better than the complete term "Military Intelligence Service." Much of the information I found either had very specific controlled vocabulary or none at all, because it is a developing topic. The relative wealth of information available through Voyager demonstrates the importance of specialized collections, such as the Hawaiian and Pacific Collections at Hamilton Library, as a resource. Librarians must stay abreast of the specialties of their colleagues and institutions. I wonder what kind of success a searcher in Montana, for example, would have. Would they know about the amount of information available here? The Internet is an important source as well, but many of its drawbacks also arise. For instance, one of the sites I looked at was featuring the MIS as a "topic of the month." Where does that valuable information go after that? Despite its value, the Internet will most likely always be fluid and impermanent like that.

There is no doubt that it is important for reference librarians to attend events like Professor Swift's talk. Beyond familiarization with the topic, librarians can learn more about evolving areas of research and interest. The event and resulting search demonstrate that there is community interest in such topics, but there may be a gap in the availability of resources on them. However, there is not an absence of material, and librarians should educate the community that even though it may be limited, contrary to Professor Swift's opinion, there is indeed information on developing topics available. Furthermore, attending this event brought to my attention the role of collection development. A librarian who attended this event, for example, can know to be on the lookout for emerging literature as well as to keep an eye on the development of research in journals and the Internet. It is a valuable experience for librarians to attend such events.

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