Today in Seattle, my grandfather, Frank Tanabe, will be receiving his college diploma from the University of Washington. My cousins and I will be watching proudly, as he and his classmates are recognized in the special commencement ceremony called "The Long Journey Home: Honoring UW Nikkei Students 1941-1942."

They are now in their 80s and 90s, and were denied the opportunity to continue their college studies because of the mass arrest of all Japanese-Americans, the Nikkei, after the Pearl Harbor attack. My grandfather was one of 450 students at UW who were taken to internment camps, known as relocation centers. He got out of camp by serving with the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Service in the Pacific during the war, but he never had a chance to complete his college studies.

I heard stories about the internment camps when I was growing up in Hawai'i, mostly from my father, Roy Kawaguchi. My father was 9 when he was relocated, but he still remembers being told to pack everything he needed into only one suitcase and leaving everything else behind. My grandparents on my mother's side, as well as my father and his family, were taken to Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho.

It was a time of great fear and hysteria against anyone who looked Japanese.

Why did Americans turn against their fellow citizens when justice is supposed to be color blind? Why did we allow the U.S. government to imprison innocent people?

Japanese-Americans were treated as the enemy. But I am proud of the nisei — my grandfather's generation — who responded to the prejudice of internment with actions of strength and honor. The nisei proved their loyalty on the battlefields of war. Countless Medals of Honor and sacrifices came from the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service. Many fought and died for the country that kept their families behind barbed wire.

After the war, Japanese-Americans still faced a country that harbored bitter feelings. My father told me his father, a champion fisherman, used to own a fishing equipment store in Seattle prior to the war. When he was forced to relocate, he left his fishing store to someone he thought was a friend. Upon returning from Minidoka, there was a sign in the window that read, "No Japs Allowed." Even with this kind of animosity everywhere, the Japanese-Americans persevered and many have earned significant achievements in education, business and social status.

Despite all that happened to our family, I was taught to never forget that I am an American. We can't dwell on past injustices, and we need to ensure that no one is denied the right to live and prosper in this great country. When President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in 1942, the Japanese-Americans obeyed quietly without mass protests. Some said they should have resisted and demanded their rights, but I think the way they responded showed strength and courage.

It saddens me to think about the pain my family suffered, but I am also grateful and proud of their accomplishments. Earlier this year, when I was in Hawai'i, I was invited to a screening of the movie "Only the Brave," directed by Lane Nishikawa. In his tribute after the showing, it felt like he spoke for all of us when he said, "The nisei were the greatest generation, and I hope that we — the future generations of Japanese-Americans — make you proud."

I am who I am because of the sacrifices of the nisei. This generation has shaped my life and helped me find myself. I hope, in my own way, I can make the nisei - and their parents, the issei — proud by passing on their values of strength, honor, courage, and loyalty to my children and generations to come.

Our family is honored and grateful to the University of Washington for recognizing its wartime students. When Grandpa gets his diploma I know he will be thinking of his parents. He said they always wanted their first-born son to get a college diploma. They would have been so proud, too.

Congratulations, Grandpa. And thank you.

Nicolas H. Kawaguchi, an MBA student at Boise State University, grew up in Manoa. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.