In 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into the Second World War. San Franciscans of Japanese, Italian, and German origin became objects of suspicion and derision, and new policies dramatically restricted their freedoms. Business licenses were revoked, insurance canceled, installment purchases repossessed, and access to areas deemed “strategic,” such as the waterfront, was denied. Unconscionably, in the first few months of 1942, all Americans of Japanese origin living on the West Coast were rounded up and sent to relocation camps. In an unbearably cruel twist of fate, restrictions were placed on German Jews, many of whom had come to the United States to escape Nazism. The International Institute protested these actions. In January 1942, Annie Clo Watson, the International Institute’s Director, was appointed to head the State’s National Defense Subcommittee on Minority Groups. Relentlessly she fought for the rights of Americans of foreign origins, citing case after case of discrimination, to no avail.