Tag Archives: grandmother

Understanding the Japanese Internment Camps: Displacement by Kiku Hughes

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the cover of Displacement

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“And keep drawing, too. Draw what you see, what happens here. It’s important. They can scare us, but they can’t make us forget.”

In this simply illustrated yet poignant graphic novel, Kiku Hughes reimagines herself as a teenager who is pulled back in time to witness and experience the Japanese internment camps in the U.S. during World War II. There, she not only discovers the truths of what life was like within these camps but also follows her late grandmother’s own experiences having her life turned upside down as her and her family are villainized and forcibly relocated by the American government. Kiku must live alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese American citizens, as she finds out about the atrocities they had to suffer and the civil liberties they had been denied, all while somehow cultivating community and learning to survive.

Touching on important themes of cultural history and generational trauma, Hughes meshes these topics seamlessly into a fascinating plot and an extremely endearing and relatable main character. Kiku reflects a lot, during her journey, on the way that marginalized people are treated within the U.S.—during the past and in modern time—but also on the way that her family’s history and experiences had such a great effect on her own life.

Throughout the story, she feels powerless because of the lack of information she has regarding her grandmother’s past and her community’s history, which makes it difficult to help those around her. She can’t tell them what is about to happen to them; she doesn’t know what the living conditions are like in the different internment camps they are sent to; she can’t warn them about the specific atrocities that await them. She is forced to undergo this displacement alongside everyone else, and her ignorance not only makes her scared but also makes her feel quite guilty for not being able to contribute more aid or comfort to those around her.

She is also confronted with this difficult-to-place, bittersweet feeling of being disconnected from her family’s culture but also acknowledging that her own habits and traditions have been so deeply impacted by it. All these moments of introspection felt like a personal call out to me and made Kiku the kind of main character to whom a lot of readers will be able to relate.

Because of my own relationship to my family’s culture and history, reading this graphic novel was an extremely personal and emotional experience. On one hand, I think a lot of people will be able to connect with this story; on the other hand, I think a lot of other people will have the opportunity to learn something new through it.

I also loved the subtle sapphic romance arc that was included. It didn’t overpower the main message of the novel, but it was a nice, comforting surprise in an otherwise heavy read. I saw it as a beautiful testament to the joy and love we humans are capable of finding, even in moments of great duress.

The illustrations were beautiful, the art style was simple but extremely effective, the characters felt very fleshed out—which is sometimes hard to do in a graphic novel, working within a limited number of panels. All the artistic choices perfectly matched the tone of the story, which is a testament to Hughes’ true talent as a creator.

Representation: sapphic, Japanese American main character

Content warnings: racism, racial slurs, colourism, sexism, hate crimes, cancer, death, grief depiction, confinement, imprisonment, war themes (World War II and Japanese internment camps)

A Genre-Bending Haunted Bookstore Story: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

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the cover of The Sentence

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I kept hearing people rave about this book when it was new. I heard it was a cozy read about someone working in a bookstore haunted by the ghost of a customer. So imagine my surprise when the book begins with the main character remembering a woman she had a crush on convincing her to steal a body that turned out to have cocaine on it, which is how she got a life sentence. That wasn’t what I was expecting.

I hadn’t heard anything about this having queer content, but we know from the first chapter that Tookie is bisexual! It doesn’t use the word bisexual, though, and in the rest of the book, she’s in a long-term relationship with a man, so I suppose most people thought it wasn’t worth mentioning. As someone who’s always on the hunt for more queer books, though—especially by BIPOC authors, and especially especially by Indigenous authors—I wish someone had told me so I could have picked it up sooner!

This is a really difficult book for me to summarize. My overall impression is of a comforting, even cozy read, but as you might imagine from what I said in that first paragraph, that’s misleading. It’s also about death, racism, and Covid-19. It’s mostly set in an Indigenous bookstore; during Tookie’s time in prison, she fell in love with reading, and when she got out, she started working at the bookstore.

One of the regulars of the bookstore is Flora, a white woman who is heavily involved in the Minneapolis Indigenous community, and who hints at having an Indigenous grandparent with little to no evidence. She was annoying enough when she was alive, but after she dies—while reading a possibly deadly book?—she’s even worse. She begins haunting the bookstore and even tries to possess Tookie, in the ultimate form of cultural appropriation.

Meanwhile, the events of 2020 in Minneapolis play out, including loved ones hospitalized from Covid, and protests against the murder of George Floyd raging through the nights. Tookie’s marriage with her husband is complicated and somewhat fraught, and her relationship with her stepdaughter is even more difficult. When her stepdaughter shows up pregnant on their doorstep, looking for support, Tookie has to try to repair their relationship and unearth her nurturing side.

As I describe it, nothing about that sounds cozy—except, maybe, the bookstore setting. But Erdrich is such an incredible writer, especially when it comes to characterization, that I just fell into this novel. I loved Tookie’s voice so much, and all the characters, including Tookie’s family and coworkers, felt real. That network of support around her made this feel comforting even as she dealt with horrific circumstances.

This was my first Louise Erdrich book, and I’ll definitely be reading more. While the sapphic content isn’t the focus of this story, I can’t help but recommend this incredible, genre-bending read in any context I can.