51 pages • 1 hour read
Kiku HughesDisplacement
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 4, Chapters 10-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4: “Home”
Part 4, Chapter 10 Summary
Content warning: This section deals with wider issues of racial discrimination and injustice, including unjust incarceration and inter-generational trauma. It contains references to racial segregation and Islamophobia.
The fog clears. Kiku and her mother are home in their own living room again. Kiku’s mother apologizes for taking so long to talk about Ernestina and their lives. Kiku admits she was afraid to ask because she was not sure her mother wanted to talk about any of it. Many Issei and Nisei avoid talking about their experiences, as if there is a sense of shame, or simply the assumption that they should just move on with their lives. Kiku’s mother insists that it is important to remember and talk about it. “Especially these days” (263), she adds, as she watches Donald Trump speaking on the television again.
Part 4, Chapter 11 Summary
Kiku and her mother start researching the camps. They find Ernestina’s yearbook from the Topaz High School, as well as government records that show when the family entered and left the camp. They find the box of mementos from Ernestina’s life, including the small carved violin that Mr. Matsuzawa made her. Kiku reflects that the time displacements “had transferred the feeling of gratitude and connection [Ernestina] must have felt at that moment” (268) to her. They also find letters written in Japanese, but none of the family can read it. Kiku’s sister Mariko asks if Ernestina spoke Japanese in the house at all. Kiku’s mother says she only spoke it with her parents and did not want her children to learn the language. As speaking Japanese had been dangerous in the camps, it makes sense that she would remain worried afterward as well. Mariko concludes “she was trying to protect her kids” (267).
Kiku also finds information about others she knew at the camp. She finds an obituary for May Ide and becomes “particularly interested in the stories of Japanese Americans who actively opposed the camps” (271). These people—like Miné Okubo, Gordon Hirabayashi, Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, Ina Sugihara, Fred Korematsu, Yuri Kochiyama, Mitsuye Endo, Norman Mineta, and Aki Kurose—inspire Kiku with their bravery “not to let history be repeated” (272). She feels she has a duty to fight injustice.
She adds that the fight seems “more and more necessary each day” (273), as Donald Trump uses “religious tests” to block refugees from Muslim nations and his “zero-tolerance” immigration policy holds children in detention centers under cruel conditions. Kiku joins the Nikkei who protest such cruelty and injustice, including groups like Tsuru for Solidarity, and Densho. Kiku’s mother explains that many Japanese Americans made similar protests in the 1970s, including Ernestina. Together, they all proclaim, “Never again” (275).
Kiku says: “our connection to the past is not lost [...]. The memories of community experiences stay with us and continue to affect our lives” (276). She adds that “the persecution of a marginalized group of people is never just one act of violence” (277) but a continual act that harms all the generations that come after. However, those who have suffered such trauma can use those experiences to fight for justice, both for themselves and for others, because “memories are powerful things” (277).
Part 4, Chapters 10-11 Analysis
Part 4 is visually much simpler and sparser than previous parts, with small panels and a lot of white space in the background to keep focus on the historical information Kiku shares in this section—particularly her brief overview of prominent figures of the protest movement within the Japanese American incarceration camps. Moreover, the scenes of dialogue between Kiku and her mother have almost no background whatsoever, as setting becomes far less important than the topic of their conversation in this section. This follows a shift in the tone of the novel, as the focus changes from the experiential content to the analytical process of drawing meaning and making resolutions.
Part 4 is called “Home.” Here, “homes” means both their literal home in Seattle, and also the concept of America as a home. The idea of home is integral to the theme of Heritage and Immigrant Identity. They are facing the idea that their home, America, is not safe for them or other minority groups, because of anti-immigrant beliefs like Donald Trump’s policies.
The novel suggests that collective trauma is a powerful and compassionate tool in Resilience and Resistance against injustice. As Kiku and her family research more about the camps and their own family’s past, they begin to reclaim their cultural heritage and their own identities as the children of immigrants, the children of survivors. Through this reclamation, they also become more convinced of the need to fight to ensure these injustices do not happen again. In the voice-over narration of Part 4, Kiku argues that those who have suffered the kinds of trauma that the Japanese American community has, have a duty to use the memory of that experience to protect other marginalized and persecuted minorities.
Hughes uses real-life examples, with a brief panel on page 274 that shows Tsuru for Solidarity and Densho protesters at the migrant camps in Oklahoma (274), examples of the kind of collective action that arises from the collective memory of the camps. The visual nature of the graphic novel makes these panels a literal sign and symbol of resistance. Kiku argues that everyone within the community can “help others and fight for just in our own time” (277), fueled by the powerful memory of their trauma. The final image of the graphic novel is a two-page spread that portrays a large crowd of protestors, with Kiku and her mother holding signs, and Ernestina standing right behind them, signifying the way she remains present in their lives and memories. Also significant is the final use of fog swirling across the bottom of the pages, as if about to sweep them all, and the reader, back into the past again.
