The
@gfbnec grant project, Interned at Home, Honor on the Battlefield: The Remarkable Stories of the Japanese American Soldiers of WWII, profiled 24 Nisei veterans interred at Los Angeles National Cemetery.
Funded by the Veteran Affairs’ Veteran Legacy Project, the grant provided the opportunity to integrate the research and findings about the Nisei veterans with the 2025 Journalism Institute curriculum. Four
@UCLA undergraduate interns were hired to support the project from May through July.
Undergraduate intern, Ethan Choi, was assigned to research George Masao Hashimura, a Nisei linguist who served in WWII. However, as Ethan dug deeper, he felt that the pieces of information did not seem to fit together.
Through meticulous detective work Ethan uncovered the truth: there were actually two different George M. Hashimuras—both Nisei linguists, likely first cousins, whose stories had been conflated for years. Previous research about "George Hashimura" had mixed up two distinct American heroes.
This discovery means that for the first time, both veterans will receive accurate recognition for their individual service and sacrifice. Without Ethan's dedication to getting the story right, one of these heroes might have stayed invisible.