During the war, 120,000 men, women and children were interned by the U.S. government, essentially for looking like the enemy. After the war they were free to go. But where? Many had lost everything. So the challenge was where and how to return home - how to once again "belong".

Thousands spent World War II in "camps," held by their own government, being forcibly held in an internment camp run by the military, complete with guard towers and barbed wire fences.

As America went to war, thousands at home headed for a worrisome future in the custody of the U.S. government. And that's where we pick up our series, Vermont Reads, as the U.S. Army was ill prepared to provide transport, food and shelter to 120,000 men, women and children.

Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor meant a world at war for most Americans in 1941. But for Japanese-Americans, it also meant a world upended, a world that would never be the same for them or their families.

Mark Stoler is emeritus professor of history at the University of Vermont and he puts into perspective the internment of as many as 120,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans.