Part 1: Chapter 1-6
- How did living in the United States fall short of or exceed Tomomi’s and Shinji’s expectations?
- What is the significance of land for the Sato family? Why was the issue of land so politically fraught in California in the first half of the twentieth century?
- How would you describe the atmosphere of Sato’s community in the weeks after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor?
Part 2: Chapter 7-13
- What strategies did the Satos use to make the concentration camps bearable?
- How did Kiyo wrestle with her own ambiguous status as a Japanese American “non-citizen” while incarcerated?
- How was Kiyo expected to advocate for her family and other Japanese American families once she was outside the concentration camp?