We Are Not Free

In October 1943, Mary Katsumoto and her family have to take army trucks to get from the train depot to the Segregation Center for No-No families at Tule Lake. Mary’s younger brother Paul wonders if Mas is off riding in a vehicle like this somewhere. Mary’s older brother stops the conversation when he notes that prisoners of war probably also get transported around on these vehicles.

The barbed wire fence at Tule Lake is even more foreboding than at Topaz. Mary and her family find that their new apartment looks similar to the last one but is even barer. Stan, her older brother, makes sarcastic remarks about their living conditions, but Mary is angry at him for convincing the family to go No-No. She gets into a fight with Stan and her father, Mr. Katsumoto, when she refuses to help clean, so she leaves the apartment to get away from them. But eventually, she comes back after dinner and helps with scrubbing the floor.

Mary learns that Tule Lake has about twice the population of Topaz and that it will only keep growing as the segregations continue. There’s no school yet, as the last Yes-Yes families in Tule move out to make room for more No-Nos. The local recreation center hosts informal classes on Japanese culture, which Mary figures are to prepare her for eventually moving to Japan. Although Mary doesn’t like Tule Lake, she also doesn’t want to go to Japan, so she doesn’t pay attention to the Japanese lessons.

One day, in the middle of one of these informal classes, a boy says he smells smoke. Someone shouts that there’s a fire by the gym, and everyone evacuates in a panic. It turns out some boys have started a bonfire, and Mary sees them add a bench to it. She laughs at this, and a boy with loud boots, whom she recognizes from her class and calls Boot Boy to herself, asks her what’s so funny. Mary is annoyed by him and doesn’t answer. Just then, Aiko appears out of the crowd—she’s one of Mary’s few bright spots in the camp. Aiko asks if they should do anything about the fire, but Mary isn’t sure what they can do.

Mary and Mr. Katsumoto continue to fight more. After one of these arguments, she leaves and finds Aiko, who wants to practice her throwing. Aiko complains that her own father won’t let her compete on the Tule Lake softball team. Mary suspects that Aiko’s parents are planning to move back to Japan.

That weekend, Stan, Aiko, and Tommy take a reluctant Mary to a basketball game. They also bring Boots Boy, whose real name is Kiyoshi. Although Mary was skeptical of him earlier, she notices that at least Tommy and Aiko seem to like Kiyoshi. In the gymnasium, Mary thinks everyone is trying to pretend to be a normal high schooler, but it’s impossible to actually do that in the camp. All of a sudden, there’s a loud noise, and Mary notices a window beginning to crack. There’s another noise, and people start to evacuate the gym in a panic. Kiyoshi is frozen in place, so Aiko has to physically pull him until he regains his senses. They make it outside safely and never see what cracked the windows.

There are more disturbances at camp that October. One day, after a loud noise, Kiyoshi starts asking Mary questions, even though she knows nothing about what caused the noise. Kiyoshi starts talking about how his old camp at Gila River was more peaceful and didn’t even have fences—it was in the middle of the desert, so there was nowhere to run. Kiyoshi says they also probably didn’t have a fence so that things would look nicer when Eleanor Roosevelt came to visit. Mary asks why he became a No-No if his old camp was so nice, and Kiyoshi admits that it was to get away from his stepdad. Mary starts to feel less annoyed with Kiyoshi and understand him better.

Two days later, Mary hears sirens and learns that a truck taking people to work at a local farm turned over, injuring 29 and killing 1. The farm workers go on strike, and that evening, Mary and Mr. Katsumoto argue again. They continue to argue over the next days and eventually, Mrs. Katsumoto slaps her to stop her. Mary just stares back at her mother, then leaves the apartment.

Mary goes to the administrative area of camp and starts throwing rocks to break windows. As she’s looking for more things to throw, she hears Stan coming toward her. He’s brought a coat for her and offers her a new rock to throw. He joins her in breaking every window of the Housing Office.

The next day, Mary and Mr. Katsumoto are the only ones home when a young man in white comes by, asking them to attend the funeral of the man who died in the truck accident. They don’t recognize him, but Mary’s father agrees to come with him. Mary is confused until she notices the man is carrying a billy club. Although the man is supposedly leading them to an event to support the dead man’s widow, Mary’s father suspects the event actually serves some other purpose.

Mary and Mr. Katsumoto make it to the cemetery, where crowds are pushing people around. Mary panics and tries to run away, but one of the men with billy clubs pushes her back, causing Mary’s father to get angry with him. A loudspeaker comes on to address the crowd, but Mary thinks her father is distracted with anger and getting ready to go after the man who pushed her. All of a sudden, the power goes out—the administration has killed it. The men with clubs all nod to one another, then go through the crowd to the funeral parlor.

Mary and Mr. Katsumoto go to a nearby apartment to get away from the crowds. He apologizes to her, saying that he was given several bad options and isn’t sure if he chose the right one. Mary is surprised to hear him apologize. He says things will be alright, and she replies that she hopes so.