In only five chapters, Julie Otsuka relays the events from the reading of the evacuation notice to the internment itself from each family member’s point of view. We never know the names of the characters. However, this only serves to emphasize the universality of the story. This incident did not involve only a few people. Instead, everyone of Japanese descent were rounded up and placed in concentration camps in the desert. This particular family spent three years in one such camp and occasionally received heavily censored letters from the father, who had been arrested earlier as an enemy dissenter.

The unsentimental simplicity of the writing style serves as a stark contrast to the emotional incidents of the story. At times, the writing seems impersonal and aloof from the events unfolding on the page. However, like the nameless, faceless characters, the author purposely keeps a distance from the protagonists in order to demonstrate how this event effected over 100, 000 people, most of them children. At the same time, Otsuka subtly underscores the attitude of the rest of America during this time. Although the Japanese have been in America since the 19th century, they were denied citizenship, even those who were born in the States. Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were like everyone else, they were mothers and fathers, students, and workers. However, in the post-Pearl Harbor hysteria, they were nameless, faceless enemy. They were stripped of their identity and grouped together based solely on their ethnic background.

The first four chapters are restrained in tone and subtle in their condemnation of the government’s actions against the Japanese. However, the quiet tone is broken in the last chapter describing the father’s point of view. Just in case the reader doesn’t understand Otsuka’s intent, she hammers it in with the father’s diatribe. Regardless, this novella is still powerful for those who have absolutely no prior knowledge of this shameful period of America’s history.

Pub. Date: September 2002
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group

A. Kim is the Halfway Senior Editor

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