June 4

Weedflower (2006)
By Cynthia Kadohata

This young adult book features Sumiko, who is 12 years old when her world suddenly changes with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Raised on her parents' flower farm in California, she and her family lose everything when the US government decrees that all Americans of Japanese descent be rounded up and relocated. Sumiko and her parents, along with other family members, are sent to the Posten internment camp built on the grounds of a Mohave reservation in Yuma, AZ. The camp is hot and dry, and her family's new quarters are a former military barracks, a very different setting from the colorful flower gardens that had been her home.

Most of Posten's residents seem to make the best of a very bad situation, trying to provide schooling and other staples of society to make life as "normal" as possible.  Sumiko meets a young Mohave boy who initially resents the intrusion on his tribal lands by the Japanese.  Eventually he and Sumiko strike up a friendship, partly based on their mutual feelings of alienation from American kids and American society, but in the end proving to be a rewarding cross-cultural relationship that enriches the lives of both.

Endnotes indicate that Japanese Americans served in the war in Europe (as volunteers and draftees) and that their regiment was among the most decorated.

After reading this book, I spoke with Tom Shikashio, a friend whose family had been interned in a camp in Idaho.  I felt such guilt that my [and his] government would force American citizens out of their homes and businesses based on an erroneous assumption that they would side with the Japanese.  Tom had been a little boy at the time and, as was typical of my kind and humble brother in Christ, he insisted that it "wasn't so bad".  I respect Tom for taking the high road when he had every right to retain anger.

Whether it takes the form of racism, anti-Semitism, or any other kind of bigotry, prejudice hurts all of us.  Recent events, tweets, and speech suggest that our country - and our leadership - have learned little since the days following Pearl Harbor.  Michelle Obama said, "When they go low, we go high." Let's aim for the high road.