Reviewed by: An Eye for Injustice: Robert C. Sims and Minidoka ed. by Susan M. Stacy Cherstin M. Lyon AN EYE FOR INJUSTICE: ROBERT C. SIMS AND MINIDOKA edited by Susan M. Stacy Washington State University Press: Pullman, Washington, 2020. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, notes, index. 246 pages. $21.95, paper. An Eye for Injustice has two main subjects: Japanese American experiences during World War II in Minidoka, Idaho, and the Pacific Northwest; and Robert C. Sims, historian of Minidoka. Sims taught at Boise State University from 1970s through 1999, where he researched, wrote about, and spoke publicly about the experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II, with his attention focusing on Minidoka and Idaho. Most of the work Sims published was meant for a narrow audience of other historians. When Sims died in 2015, his family gave his research and manuscripts to Boise State University. The resulting book became a mechanism by which his research could be shared with a broader audience and his legacy as an advocate for truth and justice preserved. The contributions of this volume are many. Minidoka is less studied than other sites of Japanese incarceration. Yet, it has joined other preserved sites and is now administered as a part of the National Parks system. This volume contributes information about Minidoka within [End Page 406] the larger framework of wartime incarceration in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. It also documents the process by which Minidoka became a National Historic Site. Importantly, it also documents the people who were instrumental in this process, including Robert C. Sims and others who played active, pivotal roles in preserving the history of Minidoka and demanding that the story be shared with future generations, even when some argued for a more patriotic, whitewashed approach to American history. The book is divided into three sections. Section one brings together eleven essays and speeches Robert Sims wrote, beginning with an overview of Japanese Americans in Idaho, followed by chapters focusing on various aspects of that history, including: Idaho’s Gov. Chase Clark; the lives and contributions of Japanese American farm laborers in Idaho and Oregon; those Japanese Americans who “voluntarily” left the coastal areas for relocation to the “free zone”; the loyalty questionnaire; military service; relocation after the war; and notes on terminology and the euphemisms of wartime policies excluding and incarcerating Japanese Americans. Section two documents the process by which Minidoka was preserved as a National Historic Site. Section three serves as a memorial to Sims’s legacy. He not only served as an advocate for preserving the history of Minidoka and Japanese Americans during World War II, but he also became a champion of those individuals whose stories he researched, and whose families he came to know personally. Sims became a champion of Hanako Wakatsuki, for example, who served as the Chief of Interpretation and Education at Minidoka National Historic Site and is now the first superintendent of Honouliuli National Historic Site in Honolulu, Hawaii. Bob, as he was affectionately known, did not confine his work to academic outcomes. He knew the individuals he researched in the archives, and he recognized the descendants of those individuals when he met them. He encouraged them in their careers and shared his research with them, resolving decades-long mysteries for families in the process. Sims exemplifies the ethics of a publicly engaged scholar, who serves the public good in many large and very small but significant ways. The research that Sims painstakingly documented for many years of his life lives on at Boise State University. This book offers broad audiences an overview of the effects of war and wartime policies of exclusion and incarceration on Japanese Americans, particularly in the states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Those interested in learning more will certainly want to read more deeply, particularly into topics such as the draft, the loyalty questionnaire, and draft resistance. An exciting contribution of this volume for even more well-read historians are the chapters on the process by which Minidoka became a National Historic Site, and the impact that Sims had on individuals whose families were incarcerated in Minidoka. This book effectively and poignantly preserves the lasting legacy of the individuals, including...