Before the attack that changed the country, a group of girls would meet their 14-year-old friend, Yuka, at her house every morning. They would walk to school together and discuss their plans for the day.

But the morning after the bombs were dropped and people lost their lives, Yuka waited and waited. Her mother urged her to go to school on her own. No, Yuka insisted, they’ll be here.

They never came.

So she went to school by herself, only to discover that classmates she had considered close friends were suddenly ignoring her.

It was Dec. 8, 1941. The day after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. A Monday.

This week, Yuka Yasui Fujikura, who was born in Oregon to Japanese parents, reflected on the backlash against Syrian refugees after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. And her thoughts drifted back to one of her country’s most shameful chapters: when the American government indiscriminately criminalized tens of thousands of people of Japanese descent — most of them born in the United States — and forced them into detention centers during World War II.