| To be young and Japanese in America after Pearl Harbor was not pleasant. The family are far from symbolic but have a general significance by not being named (the boy, the girl, the mother, the father). Over and above the callous official attitude to their welfare, there is the sinister de-personalisation of their profile in society and their internal struggle- how to adapt to camp life in the desert, how to regain status among neighbours on returning home after the war. And in the mind, there is that persistent voice that the Emperor is divine.
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