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GabyBaby posted 2/16/2012 23:24 PM

I read it years ago and it was amazing. Unfortunately, I cant remember the name of the book!

It was about a young Japanese girl/woman who lived a normal life in San Francisco? It was just around the time of the war and it told the story of how her Japanese-American family was forced into camps.

Do you know this book?
Thanks in advance!

Cally60 posted 2/19/2012 22:23 PM

GabyBaby, it wasn't "Farewell to Manzanar" was it?

The writer, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, wasn't from San Francisco, but she did live in California (in the LA area). And the other details fit.

ETA: If it wasn't that one, the Amazon page for "Farewell..." linked to a novel that sounds similar. I don't know anything about it, but the link said that the young heroine lived in Berkeley, CA. The title is "Journey to Topaz". As you probably already know, Amazon pages have a useful link at the bottom saying "People who bought this book also bought...." So if you follow some of those, too, you might just find the book you're looking for. Good luck!

[This message edited by Cally60 at 10:45 PM, February 19th (Sunday)]

trixie posted 2/20/2012 04:10 AM

Ill ask my stepmom shes a librian and that story sounds very familiar

trixie posted 2/20/2012 04:11 AM

Gaby is it fiction or nonfiction

GabyBaby posted 2/20/2012 10:49 AM

Thank you both!

I dont think it was "Farewell". That name isnt ringing any bells at all. I'll take a look at "Journey".

I may be slightly off about the city she lived in being San Francisco, but it was in California, so Berkeley is definitely possible!!

I dont remember if it was fiction (it probably was since that's the staple of what I read) but it was based on her actual life story.

Another detail I think I recall from the book is that she met someone while in the camps and had a child (I believe out of wedlock).
Hopefully I'm not crossing book details with a completely different book...but I'm pretty sure its from this particular one.

neverendinghurt posted 2/20/2012 11:56 AM

Was it "looking like the enemy"

notgoodenough1 posted 2/20/2012 12:50 PM

This brings to mind Silent Honor by Danielle Steel...
A man ahead of his time, Japanese college professor Masao Takashimaya of Kyoto had a passion for modern ideas that was as strong as his wife's belief in ancient traditions. It was the early 1920s and Masao had dreams for the future--and a fascination with the politics and opportunities of a world that was changing every day. Twenty years later, his eighteen-year-old daughter Hiroko, torn between her mother's traditions and her father's wishes, boarded the SS Nagoya Mare to come to California for an education and to make her father proud. It was August 1941.

From the ship, she went directly to the Palo Alto home of her uncle, Takeo, and his family. To Hiroko, California was a different world--a world of barbeques, station wagons and college. Her cousins in California had become more American than Japanese. And much to Hiroko's surprise, Peter Jenkins, her uncle's assistant at Stanford, became an unexpected link between her old world and her new. But in spite of him, and all her promises to her father, Hiroko longs to go home. At college in Berkeley, her world is rapidly and unexpectedly filled with prejudice and fear.

On December 7, Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese. Within hours, war is declared and suddenly Hiroko has become an enemy in a foreign land. Terrified, begging to go home, she is nonetheless ordered by her father to stay. He is positive she will be safer in California than at home, and for a brief time she is--until her entire world caves in.

On February 19, Executive Order 9066 is signed by President Roosevelt, giving the military the power to remove the Japanese from their communities at will. Takeo and his family are given ten days to sell their home, give up their jobs, and report to a relocation center, along with thousands of other Japanese and Japanese Americans, to face their destinies there. Families are divided, people are forced to abandon their homes, their businesses, their freedom, and their lives. Hiroko and her uncle's family go first to Tanforan, and from there to the detention center at Tule Lake. This extraordinary novel tells what happened to them there, creating a portrait of human tragedy and strength, divided loyalties and love. It tells of Americans who were treated as foreigners in their own land. And it tells Hiroko's story, and that of her American family, as they fight to stay alive amid the drama of life and death in the camp at Tule Lake.

Skye posted 2/20/2012 15:10 PM

Maybe David Guterson's
"Snow Falling on Cedars?"

really trying posted 2/20/2012 18:44 PM

I forget the author but it sounds like

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Henry is Chinese and she is Japanese, they attend the same private school and become best friends and get separated when her family is forced into a camp.

That's my guesss

GabyBaby posted 2/20/2012 18:55 PM

Not good, Skye, and Really-
Thank you for checking, but I don't think those are the book I'm looking for.

NEH- that is a possibility.

Looks like I have a few books to check out from the library. Thanks again!!

2kidsandadog posted 2/22/2012 10:12 AM

Whatever the name, I think I read this book but can't remember when. How strange.

Good Luck!!

GabyBaby posted 2/22/2012 10:29 AM

It actually WAS "Silent Honor" by Danielle Steele.

Since it was available in ebook form, I read it yesterday on my Kindle while waiting for "Farewell to Manzanar" and "Journey to Topaz" to come in at my library (no ebook formats for those!).

Thanks again for everyone's help!

queneanth posted 2/26/2012 23:29 PM

Perhaps 'Nisei Daughter' my Monica Sone?

GabyBaby posted 2/27/2012 09:37 AM

Thanks Queneath, but it was 'Silent Honor'.

On the plus side, I have a few other books (thanks to all the suggestions) that I will be reading in the next week or two!