We Are Not Free: Chapters 4–6

As we settle in for the ride, I quarrel with Yuki over who gets the window seat, but I lose our game of Jon-Ken-Po and have to make do with the aisle...However, I feel particularly mollified when the captain of our train car announces that the shades must be drawn until we reach the Sierra Nevada mountains, which means that Yuki will have no view at all, while I, at least, can content myself with spying on the other people in our car.

Yuki rolls her eyes and thwacks the ball deep into her mitt. I don’t think I’ll ever understand her—she’s fifteen! You’d think she’d recognize a handsome boy when she saw one, but her disinterest is palpable.

From the nearby buildings rises a steel smokestack that dwarfs the rest of camp, even the guard towers that line the perimeter. Those are only a couple of stories tall, but there’s no mistaking them or the Caucasian soldiers surveying the Main Gate area from their observation decks.
I sigh. Okay, so it’s a mite bleak.

I’m so excited for the school year to finally begin that even the unfinished classrooms and dearth of supplies can’t dampen my spirits.

This means that the Japantown boys and girls are spread out over a mile, which is farther apart than we’ve ever been before, but Frankie and I are on the same block, so we often see each other at meals, and despite his penchant for cynicism, I have to admit I quite enjoy his company.

This means that the Japantown boys and girls are spread out over a mile, which is farther apart than we’ve ever been before, but Frankie and I are on the same block, so we often see each other at meals, and despite his penchant for cynicism, I have to admit I quite enjoy his company. Even the sourest of his moods reminds me of being back in San Francisco.

Frankie has always been kind of a dolt when it comes to romance, so I’m in the middle of explaining the many rules of courtship, including the game of cat-and-mouse Joe and I are currently playing, when the horizon darkens in a sinister, familiar way.

Hand in hand, we race to the shelter of the nearest building. Tempests like this have been plaguing us since our arrival, but this one is bigger than any I’ve yet seen.

It’s like something out of the vast Sahara, sending a child’s wagon careening into the barracks and scattering coal from the coal piles.

Coughing, we run through the storm as the winds buffet us this way and that, the sand stinging our eyes and cheeks.

“I see a lot more than you give me credit for. In fact, I see you, and if you let your anger continue to fester like that, it’s going to destroy you and anyone who gets too close, and you’ll have only yourself to blame.”

Perfect six-branched stars drift silently over the camp, alighting on my hair and shoulders as I dash into the dirt lane, throwing my arms wide.

Mortified, I tug my wig straight as I sashay to the door, where Joe Tanaka is standing on the doorstep, his breath clouding in the morning air.

Icicles drip from the eaves like crystals, smoke drifts from the chimneys, and we stand in our doorways as carolers march through the streets, singing "O Come, All Ye Faithful.”

I flip to the Tangee advertisement in Vogue magazine, where Constance Luft Huhn, head of the House of Tangee, is reclining on a pea-green divan, bedecked in pearls and sapphires that gleam against her creamy skin.

Fragrant juniper and pine boughs from Mount Topaz adorn the walls, and the beams are festooned with streamers and poinsettias made from back issues of the Topaz Times.

He’s a marvelous dancer, all that buoyant energy going into every twirl, every lift, every dip.

I think about that a lot, you know, those foundations. And sometimes I think that if I just rammed my head into them hard enough, for long enough, all the backward frameworks and rotten girders of the world would crumble. And maybe then we could build something better.

Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?

Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?

I wonder if they’ve got a manual or something, some step-by-step instructions on how to keep undesirables out of their hallowed alabaster institutions.

I wonder if they’ve got a manual or something, some step-by-step instructions on how to keep undesirables out of their hallowed alabaster institutions.

At all times, you must cultivate an air of gentility, so in the event that you are unfairly accused of bigotry, you will have your respectability as your defense.

Bigots are not well-mannered, but you, my dear, are a paragon of propriety.

Bigots are not well-mannered, but you, my dear, are a paragon of propriety.

Ergo, you cannot be a bigot!

Mom’s at work at the dining hall, and my younger brother, Paul, is out, probably caterwauling on the other side of the barbed-wire fence with his friends.

I think it was one of the most American things about him, how he seized upon the freedom to be loud, to be heard, to claim his own space, even if his space encroached on everyone else in earshot.

I mean, if throwing your freedom around like that isn’t quintessentially American, I don’t know what is.

Ambiguity over specificity. DO limit the academic courses that the applicant has access to, but DO NOT provide details that he or she may contest.

DO instruct the applicant that his or her activities will be under surveillance and jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which, at its discretion, may remove him or her from your institution.

DO cite “national security concerns” to allay any of the applicant’s objections.

DO be genteel. How could anyone be angry with you when you were so polite?

It was the solemn duty of all true Americans to fight the Yellow Peril wherever they found it, and there was always a new threat to scrub from the door, glass to sweep from the sidewalk, a cracked window to tape or board over with plywood.

These disgruntled fools will pretend to stage an insurrection, but when they are faced with the consequences of their agitations, they will reveal their duplicitous nature, groveling and begging for mercy.

These disgruntled fools will pretend to stage an insurrection, but when they are faced with the consequences of their agitations, they will reveal their duplicitous nature, groveling and begging for mercy.

These disgruntled fools will pretend to stage an insurrection, but when they are faced with the consequences of their agitations, they will reveal their duplicitous nature, groveling and begging for mercy.

These are the same people who cry for their pitiful condition, who bemoan the loss of their homes and household goods, and call first for the restitution of their civil rights before they declare themselves loyal to this, their homeland.

Exile those who would shirk and run away!

Come together and demonstrate the beauty of our people to the world, rejecting the humiliation of these shameful disloyals and malcontents!