Tag Archives: japanese americans

We Are Not Free Review

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We Are Not Free is a World War II historical fiction about the Japanese internment camps written by Traci Chee. The book switches perspectives between the main characters. It starts off with 14 teens in San Francisco selling their things because they can not take a lot of their possessions with them. The characters did not have that much time to pack up their lives and leave for an interment camp. Some of them join the 442 Regimental Combat Team, but then disaster strikes….

Warning: this next paragraph contains spoilers. One reason why I like this book is that it has characters that I can get behind. It plays up the innocence aspect of the time, so I can pity them. One of the last scenes made me want to cry because it was just so powerful. I was not expecting Twitchy to die. I sped through the book in less than a week, and I am generally not such a fast reader. I also like how it switches the perspectives between the characters, so I can see what is going through my favorite characters’ heads. The fact that it switches perspectives is actually what made me like a lot more of the people. If it were not for that, then I probably would not have really liked Masaru (Mas), Francis (Frankie), or Minoru (Minnow) which are some of the characters.

Another reason behind why I like this book is because it has a concept that I am generally pretty interested in –World War Two. And I am Japanese American like the characters in the book, so I feel like I can relate to them. Also, it tells the perspective of two fictional characters in the 442 RCT (Regimental Combat Team), so I got to see how the soldiers were treated. I also took great joy in trying to figure out what the different war terms meant…😁. The book took a perspective of World War Two that I do not see that often.

I hope that you have enjoyed my post on We Are Not Free and if you have any comments or questions, please tell me in the comments!

Thank You For Reading!

We Are Not Free by Traci Chee is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download for free from Libby.

Picture Bride by Yoshiko Uchida

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picturebride_yoshikouchidaPicture Bride, a novel by Yoshiko Uchida, is the story of a teenage girl named Hana who is sent to America. She carries a picture of a man she has been arranged to marry but has yet to meet. Traveling an ocean away from her once noble Japanese family, Hana is promised that in America, she will live a life of comfort with her merchant husband, Taro Takeda. Hana is devastated when she finds not a successful merchant in San Francisco, but an impoverished shopkeeper who can barely provide for himself. However, despite her many trials, Hana and her husband learn to be happy in a marriage that seemed doomed to fail. San Francisco was not kind to Japanese immigrants in the mid-twentieth century, and Hana soon found herself faced with racism and hardships, all leading up to the one event that would change her life: the Japanese internment camps.

This novel has become one of my all time favorites, not only because of the wonderful writing style that Uchida uses, but because of his portrayal of Hana Takeda. Hana shows us rare insight into the mind of a young immigrant woman. Forced into a situation that she cannot control, Hana learns to adapt to a society that seems out to get her from the moment she sets foot on its shores. In her time period, women’s rights, especially those of an immigrant woman, were stifled. Hana was expected to be a homemaker and a mother. Graceful and dignified, Hana dares to quietly go against the norms of her culture and become an independent woman who struggles to adapt to a foreign nation and values.

-Mirabella S.

Picture Bride by Yoshiko Uchida is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.