One of the more challenging obstacles I try to overcome in teaching is getting undergraduates to see that the stories of the past are often much more complicated, multifaceted, and far less triumphant, than what they learned before they got to me. Students come to my lower-division undergraduate class, “American Identity and Belonging in the World War II Era,” eager to learn about how the United States defeated the Nazis—to learn about a time the good guys beat the bad guys. In my experience, my students tend to believe that because World War II was a global war against fascism, it was also an overwhelmingly democratizing event, both abroad and at home. Prejudice somehow evaporated for the duration, and everyone was eager to enlist in the military or otherwise help the war effort.