How did World War II affect American ethnic group identities or individual experiences? Did Polish Americans feel more or less patriotic by the end of the war? How did the experience of internment change the way that Japanese Americans experienced their racial / ethnic identity — or their sense of themselves as Americans? Did the war strengthen or weaken ethnic affiliations?

For this class project we focused on a single “object” for a short description, creating a virtual museum of artifacts of American ethnic identity during World War II. Each student also wrote a longer essay exploring how the experience of war affected a particular group’s sense of themselves as Americans and as ethnic or racial minorities.

This website is a class project for HIST268-030, “American Ethnic Identities,” at the University of Delaware, Fall 2015. Special thanks to Deborah Durant at Information Technologies and to Professor Kasey Grier for their assistance.