We Are Not Free by Traci Chee

Bibliography

Chee, Traci. 2020. We Are Not Free. New York, NY: Clarion. ISBN 9780358131434

Plot Summary

This book focuses on several Japanese families from Japantown in San Francisco who were shipped to internment camps by the U.S. government, including American-born Japanese children called Nisei, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Each chapter is written from the perspective of a different teen within this group of friends, and it follows their journey from the original camp of horse stalls in Tanforan to a larger camp with slightly larger barracks in Topaz, Nevada. Some of them get jobs in the camp, most attend school, and most try to live as normal a life as possible after having given up their homes and most of their hard-earned and sentimental possessions. The group gets split after the government forces themselves into two categories: "No, No" or "Yes, Yes," which are the answers to two of the questions on a mandatory form regarding loyalty to the United States. Some of the boys in the "Yes, Yes" category go to war, and one boy, Twitchy, gives his life in battle. The "No, No" families get sent to an even stricter camp, Tule Lake, where many are imprisoned at the whim of the lieutenant. As the war nears its end, most of the families who chose to stay in the U.S. and not repatriate to Japan returned to Japantown, finding that although it is no longer the home they left, they still have each other.

Critical Analysis

Chee does a masterful job of documenting the atrocities brought upon to Japanese immigrants and their American-born children through the unique voices of fourteen Nisei teens. The author's grandparents were subjected to the harsh conditions of these camps, and she states that she interviewed them and other family members as part of research from her book. Chee also documents some of the historical inaccuracies in the book, such as changing the date of when a Japanese man was shot by a guard at Topaz and misrepresenting the dates of some of the pictures shown between chapters to fit better with the story.

Each chapter in the book shows a unique perspective on the injustices that happened to Japanese Americans during World War II, and Chee gives each of the fourteen teens his or her own individuality. Minnow is meek, Mas is responsible and tries to lead as an example for his friends and family, Bette tries to make the best of the situation and have a "normal" teen life, Stan avoids violence and seeks out an education to better his life when he gets out, Mary puts up a wall to protect herself, Frankie is full of anger that he doesn't know what to do with, Tommy is torn between his "No, No" family and his desire to stay in America, and his chapter is unique in that it is told in verse. I was shocked to the degree of

cussing in some of the chapters, but I think it is used to illustrate the anger felt by some of these teens; if I had lost everything and was forced into unlivable conditions by fellow Americans, I would be dropping f-bombs, too. The bottom line is that these teens are resilient, and they need each other to survive the horrible conditions they face. Even though some are separated into different camps, they keep in touch and find each other in the end back in San Francisco.

Review Excerpts

Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature 2022 Honor

2022 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Finalist

2021 Printz Award Honor

2021 Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children's Literature Honor

2020 National Book Award for Young People's Literature Finalist

Publishers Weekly Starred 7/6/2020 by Barbara Poelle "Varying between first-, second-, and third-person narration; letters and verse; and even one chapter told by “all of us,” each interconnected story has a distinct voice (a provided “Character Registry” is useful for keeping track of the many characters and relationships). The individual tales are well crafted and emotionally compelling, and they resolve into an elegant arc. Ambitious in scope and complexity, this is an essential contribution to the understanding of the wide-ranging experiences impacting people of Japanese ancestry in the U.S. during WWII."

Booklist Starred Reviews 4/1/2020 "Here, she uses her own San Francisco–based Japanese American family's history to inform a blazing and timely indictment of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. Her passion and personal involvement combine with her storytelling talents to create a remarkable and deeply moving account of the incarceration. The interconnected stories of 14 very different teenage individuals beautifully demonstrate the disintegration of family life in the camps, a phenomenon often addressed in nonfiction accounts but not so well depicted in fiction—until now."

Connections

Readers may enjoy Jan Morrill's The Red Kimono, ISBN 9781557289940, which is another fiction perspective on the Japanese detention centers, or also the non-fiction book Uprooted: The Japanese American Experience During World War II by Albert Marrin, ISBN 9780553509366. School Library Connection suggests using it as part of a U.S. History class, which I think is a fantastic idea since this horrific persecution of Americans by Americans was left out of my history classes in high school. The book could also be paired with a novel about the Holocaust to explore different perspectives on World War II (https://lit-lessons.com/we-are-not-free-by-traci-chee-book-review/). The author also suggests interviewing grandparents in the way that she did to prepare for the book to learn more about the events and culture of their time (https://forum.teachingbooks.net/2020/08/traci-chee-on-we-are-not-free/#imagine).