Perspective

This story is told almost exclusively in first person. The point of view is almost exclusively that of the narrator, Jeanne Wakatsuki, whose life this story tells. Though this is the story of her life, it concentrates mostly on the three and a half years that changed her life the most, the years held in Manzanar as a Japanese-American internee. It also covers her teen years as she tries to re-integrate into the social world of high school and friends. The story is mostly about those years of childhood, as remembered by an adult, told over thirty years later.

At the age of seven, Jeanne could have done little to cause trouble for the United States government, as a spy or otherwise. However, due to the hysteria of the day, felt both by the local population as encouraged by the media, and by the government, Jeanne was untrustworthy...