American Dream

A major theme in this novel is the pursuit of the American dream. Those who believe in the American dream believe that those who work hard can earn a better life for themselves. It was this better life that many of the women who came to America from Japan hoped they would be able to enjoy. After a life of work, however, the Japanese lost all of the things for which they’d worked when they were forced to move to interment camps shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese women came to America believing that their lives would be better than what they would have had in Japan. They believed they were marrying well to do gentlemen who could take care of them. Even when they realized they had been lied to and that the husbands were really farmers, the women still...