American Scrapbook

This is a 1969 book, “A novel about the detention of Japanese-Americans by the U.S. government during World War II.”

My view: this is a novel about the internment that is confusing and almost pornographic in its approach. To even begin to understand this book the reader would already have to know about the internment, about Tule Lake and Manzanar specifically, about the Kibei and why they were considered a problem, and especially about the loyalty questionnaire and the “no-no's” and the violence that caused.

The book often shifts viewpoints, adding to its level of confusion. It makes use of the word “nigger” as well as derogatory names for women. It has a guy that rapes a woman and still thinks she will be willing to have regular sex with him later.

It's a book that could have made its point just as effectively without the racially charged words and sexual violence that it features. Of all the books I have read, fact and fiction, about the internment, this is the only one that I think the term “disgusting” applies to.

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