As a 21-year-old student, Iwao Ishino noticed the signs posted on telephone poles announcing the evacuation and internment of all people of Japanese descent residing on the West Coast of the United States.

In light of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Ishino, a Japanese American studying at San Diego State College, heard rumors among members of his church about the possibility of incarceration. He and his Japanese-American friends were confused about whether they would be personally affected.

"Among some of us, there was an impression that since we were citizens, we would not be taken in," said Ishino, a San Diego-born U.S. citizen who now resides in East Lansing. "The order was interesting. It was termed 'aliens and non-aliens' instead of using the word 'citizens.'"

On Feb. 19, 1942, the U.S. government ordered all people of Japanese descent living on the West Coast to move to one of 10 internment camps throughout the country.

Ishino's struggle recently was recounted, along with those of several Japanese-American Michigan residents, in a documentary created by Michigan Government Television about the internment. The documentary offers an account of the Japanese plight in "Defining Moments: Frank Murphy, Fred Korematsu and the Internment of Japanese Americans During World War II."

The video was played in front of an audience at the Michigan Library and Historical Center on Feb. 26.

"They did a nice job," Ishino said. "We got copies of that, and we sent a copy to each of our four daughters. It's kind of a family record now."

Internment and World War II forever changed Ishino's life and outlook. Before the Pearl Harbor attack, Ishino liked to take his dates out dancing to big-band music, attend church events and watch football with friends. As a junior in college, he was involved in many clubs within the Japanese-American Society.

"We knew we were separate," Ishino said of himself and his Japanese-American friends. "It was kind of a segregated society."

After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the executive order calling for the internment, Ishino said he and his family had a difficult time coping with the new change ahead of them. They were sent to Poston, an internment camp in Arizona, where Ishino lived for two years.

"My mother and father had a child that was just born a few months before the evacuation took place, so the baby was still in diapers," said Ishino, the oldest of five children. "Our living quarters in the camp were in one small room packed together, and so we lived with an infant who cried a lot."

It was at the internment camp where he met Mary, his wife of almost 60 years. They were forced to abandon their lives, stand in lines and deal with daily discrimination, but the two and fellow Japanese Americans remained faithful to America.

"The people who are raised in this country, who went to our schools, really are, by and large, a loyal people," Ishino said. "In the Japanese-American case, there wasn't a single case where an individual was engaged in espionage or sabotage."

The documentary recounts investigations conducted during the 1980s that explored the false claims of Japanese betrayal.

"It's a reminder of how vigilant you have to be if you really believe in human rights." said Sandra Clark, director of the Michigan Historical Center. "When I see people like the Ishinos talking about something that must be so painful, I think they must have great courage.

"They did not lose their loyalty to America. To come through that experience and still believe in this country is remarkable, to say the least."

Many historians say the story of Japanese internment is one that had been stifled for 40 years due to the silence of those in the camps and the silence of the government.

Helen Erlandson, a former MSU adviser in the College of Natural Science, was forced to live at Topaz, an internment camp in Utah.

"We're used to repressing bad moments, and I've done that," Erlandson said. "It's just not something you want to remember. Putting people away like this, just wholesale - it's just very disconcerting."

Michigan Government Television, along with attorneys and members of the State Bar and the State Bar Foundation, collaborated to make and fund the video as a tool for middle school and high school classrooms.

"The fact remains that history is a great teacher with many lessons," said Bill Trevarthen, executive director of MGTV. "I hope kids make the association with the kind of legal questions we're facing post-9/11. These are people just like they were."

While many people question how much national security is too much, Ishino, now an MSU professor emeritus of anthropology, continues to revisit his own experiences with racial discrimination.

Ishino gives speeches at Lansing Community College about the positive "unintended consequences" that occurred because of Japanese internment. These include the government allowing Japanese people to become naturalized citizens, to immigrate to America and to become members of Congress. The internment also resulted in the issuing of a $20,000 payment to each incarcerated individual.

"Japanese incarceration was a mistake, and therefore, if it was a mistake, there should be some lessons in it," Ishino said.

Sonia Khaleel can be reached at khaleel1@msu.edu.