Displacement
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- USD 11.99
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- USD 11.99
Publisher Description
A riveting tale of a teenager's unexpected journey into her grandmother's past, exploring the intergenerational impact of the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II.
While on vacation in San Francisco, Kiku suddenly finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II. As these displacements continue, Kiku becomes "stuck" in the past, living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in the internment camps.
Through this firsthand experience, Kiku receives an education she never got in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, yet managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive.
In Displacement, Kiku Hughes weaves a bittersweet tale that highlights the power of memory and the importance of understanding our history. This historical graphic novel sheds light on a dark chapter in American history, revealing the strength and resilience of those who endured it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mixing fact and fiction in this autobiographical graphic novel, debut author Hughes follows a teen experiencing Japanese internment firsthand through time travel to the WWII era. Japanese American Kiku Hughes, 16, feels disconnected from her Japanese heritage, and she knows little about her family's history, which includes internment in Utah's Topaz Relocation Center. On a trip to San Francisco with her mother, an ephemeral fog transports Kiku from the site of her maternal grandmother's childhood home to the past. Later, pulled from her Seattle home during the Trump Muslim ban, Kiku spends more than a year interned as a Japanese prisoner alongside her then-living maternal grandmother. She struggles over whether to introduce herself and manages to cope with the help of fellow prisoners Aiko Mifune and love-interest May Ide. Through Kiku, readers learn key details about this moment in history, among them the murder of James Wakasa and the further relocation of people who voted, in a loyalty questionnaire, against serving in the U.S. military and renouncing their ancestry. Art features straightforward linework with full-color, often spare backgrounds that focus on characters. Though Kiku doesn't exert her will on the past, Hughes centers that powerlessness to create a compelling story about an oft-overlooked period of U.S. aggression against its own citizens. Ages 12 up.
