Synopsis:

“All around me, my friends are talking, joking, laughing. Outside is the camp, the barbed wire, the guard towers, the city, the country that hates us. 

We are not free. 
But we are not alone.” 

We Are Not Free, is the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II.

Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco.
Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted.
Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps.
In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart.

We Are Not Free wasn’t anywhere on my radar, but thankfully it arrived in my book subscription box from The Strand Bookstore. Traci Chee has taken a dark piece of her history and created something beautiful. 

“And I get it, finally. Gaman. The ability to hold your pain and bitterness inside you and not let them destroy you. To make something beautiful through your anger, or with your anger, and neither erase it nor let it define you. To suffer. And to rage. And to persevere.”

Traci Chee, We Are Not Free

This book tells the story of fourteen friends and their experiences when they–and their families–are ordered from their homes in Japantown, San Francisco and relocated to incarceration camps. Each chapter of the book is told from a different teens’ point of view, the story progressing chronologically as they get older. It even follows one of the characters into battle after they’ve joined the war. It was one of the most moving passages I’ve ever read set during a battle. And several of the characters have a special way of telling their part of the story: with art, poetry, letters, or in a diary format.  The mixed media aspect of the book was one of my favorite parts. And the historically accurate pieces enhanced the telling of the story—which only got better with each chapter. I was an emotional mess by the end.

The author’s note at the end of the book was almost as beautiful as the story. I appreciated her honesty and inclusion of her family’s history with the camps, as well.  And the ‘Further Reading’ list was also a nice bonus!