Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Sorry about Wednesday night, folks–I had a meeting that ran after 10 and then my hubby and I were talking and suddenly it was SO late. I suppose it’s just as well, though–reviewing Kiku Hughes’ Displacement is going to take more concentration than I usually have late at night. I was so excited to read it–it was an honor book for the Asian/Pacific American Literature award for youth fiction–but I ended up having more conflicting feelings about it than I expected.

On the one hand, the idea of having a modern teen transported back in time to Tanforan and Topaz is a good one, and there aren’t enough books about the Japanese-American experience during WWII. Hughes choice of “incarceration” camps was new to me, but I ended up liking it; after all, “internment” camps don’t sound like places surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by men with guns, where the rights of other American citizens didn’t apply. (I’m aware that few of the Issei were citizens, but a)the Nisei were and b)most of the Issei would have been if they had been legally permitted to become such.) The focus on teenagers and young single adults, including those who were actively protesting their incarceration, was new for me as well, but interesting.

My problem with Displacement is this. Hughes goes to a lot of trouble to establish the continued relevance of the experiences it portrays, referring to Trump’s immigration policies as well as attitudes towards the anti-war protesters in the 70s, and I don’t actually think she’s wrong. If the message of your book, however, involves painting an accurate picture of history to give present-day readers a stark portrait of what can happen–and that is the sense I got from Hughes, over and over–then you have to give an accurate picture of history. Having a queer heroine from the future is one thing; portraying two Japanese-American young men from the early 1940s dancing together is another. I don’t see that happening openly during WWII; it’s simply not culturally or historically realistic.
Between that and Kiku’s relationship with May, which also crossed the boundaries of realism for the early 40s, Displacement loses its claim to historical accuracy. The rest of it may be quite realistic, but when one aspect of life in the camps is deliberately romanticized (and I use that word purposefully), it stops being a portrayal of history.

I’ve been staring at my screen for a ridiculous amount of time, but that’s the best I can do for a review. I think Hughes tried to tell two stories–two different KINDS of stories–in the same book, and it didn’t work for me. You’ll have to decide for yourself if you think it will work for you.