The first chapter begins in the spring of 1942 when a Japanese woman who remains unnamed sees a sign at the post office, after buying a shovel at the local handy store, through which the Japanese people are told that they must leave the area and move to special places chosen for them. The reason behind this is that the American government feared that the Japanese living in America would side with the Japanese against which the Americans were at war with.
The woman then goes home to pack and almost two weeks later, she still is not finished. The woman goes to the store to buy some supplies but the man at the counter refuses to let her pay, claiming that she will pay him later. The woman then goes home where she continues to pack her things which will end up in storage because they were told not to bring with them only clothes and bedding but nothing else. The narrator also reveals that the woman was married but that her husband was arrested a few months before and transferred to a prison for interrogation. She hadn’t heard from him since then and now her family is told that they have to leave as well. The narrator reveals that the woman has two small children.
When the children return home from school, their mother tells them to prepare for the trip and the girl, who is ten years old responds that she knows. The woman kills the stray dog she feed regularly because she feared that the dog would starve if she were to leave and then she releases their bird because she is not allowed to take pets with them.
The first chapter ends with the woman sitting on the floor, crying over the emptiness of her own house and the realization that starting the next day, they will have to go wherever they will be told to go. The woman drinks wine and is scared for the next day.
The second chapter is from the girl’s perspective and she recalls the journey from California to Utah, through the desert. The girl is bored by the long train ride and she feels sick because of the constant moving in the train. When the girl goes one day to the bathroom, she encounters a man, named Ted, waiting in line and the girl learns that the man was a rich Japanese who lost however all his wealth when he was deported. The girl then returns to her seat and the man seems to have disappeared suddenly.
The boy asks when they will reach their destination and while the mother tries to reassure her boy that they will arrive soon, the girl responds by telling her brother that their journey will never end. During the night, a window breaks while the train passes through a town and the children are able to see a white mustang running almost as the same speed as the train.
The next morning, the train reached its destination and the Asians were told to get off the train while being watched closely by armed guards. The Japanese were taken into the desert and the first thing that characters notice is how unbearable the heat and the dust are.
The third chapter is told from the boy’s perspective while in the camp. The boy misses his father and he sees his face in every old male in the camp. The boy lives in a small room with his mother and sister and his mother warns him to never touch the fence surrounding the camp but the boy makes a habit out of walking near the fence and looking at the guard towers. The Japanese spend their time just waiting and there is no hierarchy among the Japanese.
The boy has a hard time understanding why he and his family were sent to the camp and he often thinks that it was something he had done. That autumn, the farmers came to the camp to take prisoners as workers but when the Japanese returned they said that they will never go work again because the Americans treated them harshly and they were often abused. The family continues to receive letters from the father but there is always some sentence blacken out and unreadable.
The boy feels alone because his sister no longer spends her time with her family and his mother also became distant and withdrawn. The boy’s mother spends her days sleeping and thinking about the time she spent in Japan and when she wakes up she tells her boy about her dreams.
In the spring of the next year, some families are sent to another camp when the men refuse to enroll in the army and a man is shot dead near the fence while he tried to pick a flower.
The third chapter ends in summer with the boy sitting one night in his cot and thinking about his father and how one day he may come for all of them.
The last chapter is told from the combined perspective of the girl’s and the boy’s when they are allowed to return to their old home. The family returns home after a period of three years and a half and they find their house different from what they remembered it to be. The house was broken into and every valuable item was stolen. In their absence, the lawyer they hired to take care of the house rented it and the people who stayed there destroyed the house almost completely.
The family has almost no money but the woman uses what little money they have to buy some mattress to sleep on. When the soldiers return home, they tell stories about how they were mistreated by the Japanese and this only intensified the persecution the Japanese had to endure.
The children become more obedient and learn to never speak back. They are treated with suspicion by the other children in school and despite being insulted, they never fight back. The woman tries to find a job but everyone refuses to hire her. In the end, she finds work with a wealthy white family as a maid.
The father also returns home, looking aged, thin and without teeth in his mouth. The father changes as well and he refuses to talk about the time he spent in prison. The father was clearly affected by the time he spent in prison and he is unable to find work because of his ill health and because he was detained in a prison for dangerous criminals.
The novel ends with the children going from house to house, searching for a rosebush their mother planted in the garden before they were taken away.
