Civil Rights versus National Security
People who had committed no other crime than being of Japanese descent were imprisoned without due process of law into internment camps during World War II. That is the story being told in this memoir. It is not merely a theme, but the very subject and as the subject it continually raises disturbing questions how far a democracy can go to protect its national security before it is no longer even deserving of being called a democratic state.
Racism
The Japanese-American family at the center of this story experienced a certain level of racism before World War II, an excessive and brutal display of racism during the war, and lingering aspects of racism following the war. The entire point of internment camps was supposed to be national security during World War II. Keep in mind, however, that you will never—ever—read a true story about internment camps for German-American families during World War II. Was the decision to illegal imprison thousands of families based on racism more than security? Does that question even need to be asked?
Family
The larger aspects of how the U.S. government treated these families is the driving force behind the memoir, but it lingers over the proceedings more like background music. Front and center is a domestic drama about racism and violation of civil rights can impact the cohesion and order of a family. Every member responds differently to the realities of being imprisoned for no other reason than heritage, but that response resonates in the struggle to rebuild a normal life after release from the camps.
The American Dream
The narrator’s father lived outside his homeland of Japan and inside the borders of the U.S. for nearly four decades at the time Pearl Harbor was attacked. He had already suffered discrimination due to the Alien Land Law and despite being treated like a second-class immigrant tourist to the country, he still continued to believe in and pursue the American Dream of making a living to provide for his family and reap the benefits of freedom and a society where the potential for success was not pre-determined as a result of birth into a specific class. Although not directly confronting this as an issue, the inherent unfairness and rigged game that brings immigrants to America in the first place simmers very quietly beneath the surface. The events of the memoir become a connect-the-dots game that winds up creating an image of a country that promises equal opportunity to live the dream, but fails miserably to keep those promises.
