Writing

As the novel opens, Kiku is writing down her experience of the displacements. Prior to experiencing these displacements, she had not known much of her family history or the history or much of the history of the Japanese-American experience. Through the act of writing, she is preserving that history. This idea of history and the preservation of memory remains a prominent theme throughout the novel, and when something is put down in writing, it has a permanence. In fact, through the act of writing this graphic novel, Hughes herself is partaking in the same experience that Kiku does when she writes.

The Mall

In Chapter 1, Kiku and her mother learn that a mall has been erected in the place of Kiku’s grandparents’ home. The destruction of the home symbolizes the destruction of Japanese culture and history, and the mall represents the way that materialism and...