Product reviews
The author of "The Best Bad Thing", "The Happiest Ending", and "A Jar of Dreams" tells of her childhood in Berkeley, California. Although her parents were both born in Japan, Yoshiko, her older sister Keiko, and her parents all consider themselves Americans. Although Yoshiko and her family are happy in the United States, she describes her feelings of not fitting in and her fears about being different from her mostly white classmates and neighbors. When Yoshiko is in college, her fears of discrimination become reality when, because of mass hysteria, racism, and paranoia after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese-American population of California and other western states are forced to live in internment camps in the United States. The people in the camps--many of them American citizens--are stripped of their civil rights and treated like criminals. Yoshiko describes the harshness of life in these camps, and how she and her family struggled to survive. After being released, Yoshiko became a teacher and the author of "Journey to Topaz" and "Journey Home", which are based on her experiences in the internment camps.
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