Shame is a cruel thing. It should rest on the perpetrators... but they don't carry it the way the victims do.

This was very emotional and I wasn't ready to cry so much.

I think it's sad that the first time I ever heard about Japanese Americans being imprisoned in concentrations camp during World War II was on Never Have I Ever, a Netflix teen series. During my school years, I studied Pearl Harbour, Nagasaki and Hiroshima horrors at least twice in detail, but this topic was never mentioned. Not in the history books, not from the teachers. It makes me wonder if I should just start questioning anything that I ever learned in school. The half truths, the cropped stories.

I really admired the way his parents always tried to answer his questions and explain democracy and the complicated dynamics of the internment to his kid's level. The way his mother was always looking out for them first, the courage to choose to be No-nos, without knowing what this would mean for their future... And then, when they went back to L.A.? With nothing but a train ticket and a good luck? As a daughter of immigrants, I can't imagine the pain of finding yourself on the street, after you've worked so hard to build a life.

I liked how at the end of the book, the author compared the laws that affected Japanese Americans yesterday to more recent U.S. bans that specifically target Muslims. If the "enemy" keeps changing, maybe it's time to ask ourselves who the real enemy is, if there is really one. Concentrations camps still exist everywhere, we just call them in other ways, so it's less scary.

⚠️ My rating only reflects my enjoyment of this book as a reading experience. I could never reduce someone's trauma to a number.