Multi-generational family saga from 1941 to the 1970's told from the perspective of a daughter from age 5 to 35. The book opens with Naomi as a five year old Japanese-Canadian living in Vancouver with her upper middle class family, her mother having just gone to Japan to visit elderly relatives. War measures taken to protect the Pacific Coast from Japanese invasion begin with intering all citizens and residents of Japanese descent in Hastings Park (still in use as a horse race track in Vancouver) and progessively become worse. The book concludes with an excerpt from findings presented to senate in 1946 calling the internment practice a method of Naziism and a crime against humanity.

I checked and the excerpt of findings presented to senate is a real document! I'll bet you don't have much of a political future after you compare your government to Nazis.

I grabbed this book from the library after attending a photo exhibit featuring the contribution of Japanese Canadian pioneers to settling the farming community where I live, right through to the forced labour most endured on Alberta sugar beet farms. I found it very interesting the Japanese Canadians morphed from the enemies on the coast to respected members of their new communities.

The plot is laid out in a very non-linear format and might even be non-sensical if you don't already have a general idea of the treatment of Japanese Canadians during WWII.

I can't remember the last time I forced myself to finish a book I was completely bored with. Seriously, this book is a lot of complaining, and a lot of nothing happening, and dashes of racism issues. That's all find a dandy, but give me a reason to care about your hardships. Call me cruel, but if your book lacks agency, it doesn't make for an interesting reading experience.

If I didn't have to read this for my job, I'm pretty sure I would have sent this one back to the library in a heartbeat. Such a boring, uninspiring read.

Yes, I know why this book was supposed to be important when I read it for Asian American literature class. I just wish it had been a more compelling read, frankly.