We Are Not Free is a book by Traci Chee that tells the story of the Japanese citizens contained in camps after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. It retells a hidden story full of anger, confusion, love, and humor. The author uniquely tells individual stories from different characters’ perspective and use various structures in the text to reflect on the diversity of the Japanese characters, show their personality and feelings, and reflect on the social and historical background in different facets.

  The story begins when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The local Japanese youth united as a gang of 13 teenagers. However, when a bunch of “ketos attacked the youngest brother in the Ito family,” anxiety begins to brew in the Japanese community. When anxiously awaiting the Civilian Exclusion order, they are forced to leave their homes in San Francisco, sell their furniture and belongings with special meanings, and enter the harsh environment of Tanforan Camp. Tanforan Camp  a former property housing racehorses, contained “a twenty-by-nine-foot stall stinking of manure, sweat and lime.” The American government only permitted the prisoners a suitcase per person.

After the resettlement, the Japanese tried to make their living arrangements more homelike by adding schools and a cafeteria.. Yet, despite feelings of starvation, neglect, discrimination, and pain, they still managed to stay united. Remarkably, the prisoners remained optimistic, seeking normalcy.

  Stan Katsumoto is one of the boys in the gang. Unlike others, he always bore a sense of irony in his speeches, reflecting his feelings: indignant about being told by the whites to follow the American rules and love the country. At the same time,  the country is making them suffer in this camp “for the greater good.” After the Japanese settle down, he considered applying to college. The first five universities turned down his application. As Stan puts it, “I wonder of they’ve got a manual or something, some step-by-step instructions on how to keep undesirables out of their hallowed alabaster institutions.” Finally, however, the sixth college offers an olive branch to him, and his American Dream is on the verge of getting true. However, the opposition and discrimination of the Japanese in the camp also grew. That night, a gang of whites wrote “JAPS GO HOME” on Stan’s window, and they tried to break their window. After that, the American Government recruited Japanese willing to fight for America, and Mas, Frankie, and Twitchy went away.

  One major event in the story is the death of Mr. Uyeda. He is a retired bachelor from block eight. When Stan and his father went for a walk with his father bragging to others, Mr. Uyeda got shot. Stan’s first reaction is to run to Mr. Uyeda, but his father stops and saves him. Later that night, Stan saw the indifference of the police officers toward Mr. Uyeda’s Death. Escape was not his plan; he played with the dogs; however, guards shot him. No white man mourns for him, and the thing they only care about is whether he is a spy. Later, the U.S. Government decided to do a questionnaire to confirm the Japanese captives’ loyalty. Those who answered Yes to the question about their commitment could stay in Tanforan and have an easier life. However, if no was their response, the government forced them to a harsher camp, charged with being disloyal. In this decision, half of the members answered Yes because they still loved America, and the other half answered no either because their parents are traditional Japanese or because they decided to fight for their dignity against the Government’s oppression. The main characters parted, and the story follows them to their next stop, Tule Lake Relocation Center.

  At Tule Lake Relocation Center, things are getting worse. The Americans shut down all the activities the Japanese once had in Tanforan, and there were more security guards and soldiers, including four tanks. The camp provided food; however, the food was thrown on the ground for the Japanese to scavenge like animals. Also, the government often arrests innocent people feared of inciting rebellions. The guards imprisoned Stan for watching a movie, and his friend Yosh later joined him too. They showed their dignity by not obeying the police’s orders and faced punishment with other respected  prisoners. By the end, Yosh and Stan were both released.

  Meanwhile, Shig, Mas, and Twitchy arrived in Italy. They need to perform better than other Army, only because that is their only way to earn respect from the whites. They experienced the true battleground and saw some of their peers die. After they moved to France, Twitchy perished in combat. The group of Japanese mourned the loss of Twitchy. Apart from the abuse in relocation centers, the country they loved has taken away their family members.

  At the end of the story, the Japanese Americans come together. They began a new life, although none of them will ever forget what happened in the past. They tried to encourage each other, and the story.

  In my opinion, this book is successful in its technique. However, this is not a history book recording facts rather than creating characters for us to find sympathy in them. The author admits to changing some of the event dates and concocting the main characters; however, she did include figures like F. D. Roosevelt. Some characters reflect the author’s grandparents, and their personalities vary and are surprisingly unique. For example, Bette is optimistic, while Frankie is a pessimist. This characteristic is another technique Traci Chee used to give us the whole picture of what it was like in camps and how different Japanese think about that. Also, the images of each person gave me some sense of what it was like and their emotions.

  However, there are a few flaws in this book. First, the author tried to include Japanese words into the book, and although it is successful in some respects, in others, they are just as confusing as the storyline itself. The author tried to let each character connect to what the previous character was saying, and that did help in the storyline. Still, if careless readers like me read this book, they may get confused, not realizing the numerous perspectives offered until reading the first five chapters. There are love stories in the storyline, I believe are good in showing the characters’ love toward each other, but it seems that the author just randomly matched  two people into a couple neatly, only leaving a few kids who is not yet 18. It may seem incredible, therefore, for the readers to believe that they really went through what the story described, or it may make the readers think the tortures are less than what the writer writes.

Therefore, I would say that this is a successful book, a book reminding us of history, but only with a few flaws that may affect the reader’s experience reading this book.