Journey to Topaz has three main settings: Yuki's home in Berkeley, the camp at the Tanforan Race Track, and the camp at Topaz. The story begins in the first week of December 1941, with Yuki eagerly anticipating Christmas. Her family's rented home has enough room for Yuki's mother to entertain guests and for Yuki, her brother Ken, and their parents to live comfortably. It has a backyard for Yuki's dog Pepper and a fishpond that is the home of a big gray carp. Mr. Sakane, Yuki's father, tends a nice garden. Yuki and her family have many friends in their neighborhood; they are well-established within the community.

After her comfortable years growing up in Berkeley, Yuki finds the Tanforan Race Track—renamed the Tanforan Assembly Center—a shock. One of fifteen such assembly centers hastily set up to house the 110,000 Japanese-Americans of the West Coast, Tanforan is...