We Are Not Free

Traci Chee is the descendant of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in detention camps in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. She was born and grew up in California, studying literature and creative writing at University of California, Santa Cruz, and earning a master’s degree from San Francisco State University. She published her first novel, the young adult fantasy The Reader, in 2016, followed shortly by The Speaker and The Storyteller, which form the Sea of Ink and Gold trilogy. For her next novel, We Are Not Free, Chee interviewed relatives about their experiences during World War II, traveling to the sites where some of them were detained. She continues to write young adult fiction and currently lives in California.

Although there were a variety of factors involved in the United States’ decision to enter World War II, the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was the most pivotal moment in spurring the U.S. to join the Allied side. Japan planned a surprise attack on an important American naval base in order to prevent interference in Japanese operations. Within a couple days of the attack, Japan and the United States had declared war, and the other Axis powers soon joined in declaring war on the U.S. Due to the attack on Pearl Harbor, anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. increased, particularly against Japanese people. Such discrimination (including state-sanctioned discrimination) existed long before Pearl Harbor. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, for instance, prevented Chinese workers from immigrating into the country. The post–Pearl Harbor discrimination culminated in the formation of the War Relocation Authority, a government agency established to forcibly move Japanese Americans into temporary detention centers. Although the relocations were justified at the time as a safety measure, today, the camps are widely condemned as racist, unnecessary, and unjust. The policies of the U.S. government toward Asians and Asian Americans continue to be controversial, with some arguing that recent events like the COVID-19 epidemic have once again led to an increase in anti-Asian rhetoric and violence.

World War II is a common setting for historical novels for younger readers, while books that chronicle the experience of Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes during this period are less common. Still, one of the earlier examples is Yoshiko Uchida’s Journey to Topaz. More recent offerings include Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata, The Fences Between Us by Kirby Larson, Displacement by Kiku Hughes, Under the Blood-Red Sun by Graham Salisbury, and They Called Us Enemy by George Takei. The forced relocation of Japanese Americans also comes up in Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan, which similarly explores how the lives of different young characters intersect during World War II. As Chee mentions in an author’s note, the way writers have approached writing about what Japanese Americans went through during World War II has evolved over time. Initially, when writing about the events, people used words supplied by the government like “internment,” “evacuation,” and “assembly center” to describe what happened to affected Japanese Americans. Today, many writers and historians feel that these terms are misleading and that words like “incarceration,” “forced removal,” and “temporary detention center” are more accurate at conveying the poor treatment and lack of rights Japanese Americans suffered during this time.