by Robert H. Kono (Author)
This wartime coming-of-age story starts in a Wyoming prison camp, where nine-year-old Alan Kurobe is locked up with his disabled mother and two younger sisters. They join thousands more Japanese Americans uprooted and incarcerated after Japan's attack at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Encircled with barbed wire and gun towers, detainees strive to cope with physical discomfort, poor diet, armed patrols and interminable boredom, When his mother is hospitalized, Alan and his sisters are shipped to a camp in Texas to join their Japanese-born father, a suspected enemy alien. Family dysfunction, institutional racism and a perpetual identity crisis plague Alan for four years in the camps before the family is forcibly "repatriated" to Japan at the insistence of their father. Their daily struggle continues for 13 more years in a devastated, disease-ridden foreign country, but Alan disciplines himself, studies hard and masters Japanese - until his unique talents come to the notice of the US Occupation Authorities. A story of determination, resilience and ultimate personal triumph, based on the author's real-life experiences.