Nisei Daughter

In the middle of August, the Itoi family set off by train to Camp Minidoka in Idaho. When the train stops and they are allowed to get out and stretch their legs, Sone notices that a group of white farmers has made a special trip to come and inspect the Japanese arrivals.

Camp Minidoka is a large army-type barracks, and the family’s room measures 20-by-25 feet. The seasons in Idaho are harsh, and the family suffer dust storms, blazing-hot summers, and inadequate clothing during the freezing winter.

By fall, “Camp Minidoka had bloomed into a full-grown town,” with a school, an administration, a hospital, libraries, and even church activities in Christian and Buddhist denominations (195).

Sone feels that she and her family “had drifted farther and farther away from the American scene” and are relegated to a “peripheral existence” (198). Then, unexpectedly, a group of army personnel march in to recruit a special combat unit of Nisei volunteers. There is uproar in the camps at how people who are being treated like second-class citizens are now being recruited to die for this democracy. They also protest the military’s decision to segregate the Nisei from other chapters of the army.

There is great debate in the camps as to whether to enlist; finally, Sone’s brother, Henry, does. While his Issei parents initially do not know how to feel about his decision, they accept it, with Benko even saying “it’s about time we all stopped thinking about the past. I think we should go along with our sons from now” (201). Though Henry enlists, he never sees action due to his poor eyesight. 

Henry and Minnie announce that they are getting married, and the Itoi and Yokohama families get permission to travel to Twin Falls to prepare and have the wedding. An organ and a wedding dress are procured with great difficulty; Henry sprains his ankle the night before the wedding.

At the ceremony, Sone is charged with playing the organ, which is intended to sound dignified, but “howled like a drunken village idiot” and is so loud that it has to be played from the bathroom (208).

Back at the camp, the newlyweds and their siblings host a tea in celebration of their wedding. However, because they host “an American tea party,” as opposed to a Japanese one, their Issei guests are confused (212). They arrive late, so as not to appear too eager, and will not touch the food until Sone serves all 100 of them. Moreover, they refuse to eat or talk while the music is playing because they do not consider it “polite” (214). Sone is left feeling that “to try to force East to meet West had been a terrible mistake. Our American tea party with Japanese guests had nearly been a complete failure” (215).

In 1943, a year after Evacuation Day, the War Relocation Authority is “opening channels through which the Nisei could return to the main stream of life” (216). Those cleared by the FBI, who had proof of a job and a place to live, were allowed to participate. While the West Coast is off limits, there are placements out east.

Sone receives a letter from Dr. Richardson, a Presbyterian pastor in Chicago. She will stay with his family and work for a dentist who is in desperate need of an assistant and willing to hire a Nisei.

The Richardsons call Sone by her European middle name, Monica, and are kind to her. As she enjoys her lovely room and new family, she feels that she “had at last come to the end of a long journey, and walked into a resting place for tired souls” (219).

Initially, Sone worries about people’s reactions to her Oriental face, but it turns out that people stare “out of curiosity and not hostility” (220). She is mistaken for the actress Anna May Wong and a Chinese fan dancer. Nevertheless, she likes Chicago and enjoys meeting Matsuko, her childhood friend, and her social circle. She also briefly reunites with her brother and sister.

Dr. J.J. Moller, her dentist boss, turns out to be a “slave driver” (223). He works Sone so hard that she faints in front of a patient. This incident drives Sone to quit her job. When she returns home, the Richardsons have a surprise for her: she has received a scholarship to Wendell College in Indiana and will live with a minister’s widow, Mrs. Ashford.

At Wendell College in southern Indiana, Sone flourishes and regains her old confidence and zest for life. Her interests “exploded in a number of directions—music, history and current events” (229). Deciding that her interest in people is profound, she studies clinical psychology. She observes that “faculty and students alike went out of their way” to make the Nisei girls “feel a real part of the campus life” (227). However, while they are swept up in a round of dinners and teas, they are not permitted to join a sorority, owing to a national ruling against it.

Nevertheless, Sone makes good friends with people from numerous ethnic backgrounds, including Caucasian, Colombian, and Thai.

She goes home to visit her parents in Camp Minidoka, where her father is recovering from pneumonia and her mother is aging. She is depressed by the “silent and bare” camp room, where the walls have gone a “dingy gray from the coal smoke” (231). She feels deeply the sacrifices the Issei generation made in coming to America, and for their children. She sees that they have “struggled so much for us” and that being born into two cultures is a gift (236). Instead of a “two-headed monstrosity,” Sone feels that “two heads are better than one” (236).

When she leaves her parents, Sone returns to Wendell College full of hope, feeling “like a whole person instead of a sadly split personality. The Japanese and American parts of [Sone] [are] now blended into one” (238).