We Are Not Free

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “We Never Look Like Us”

Minnow, 14. March 1942.

Since the attack on Pearl Harbor, Minnow Ito has been told by his older brother, Mas, to go straight home after school. Ever since the death of their father several years ago, Mas acts like the head of the family. Minnow doesn’t usually mind, but he resents the restrictions placed on him. Minnow likes to draw and sometimes stops to sketch the things he sees. Today, he stops to sketch the high school football team practicing, and he loses track of time. Realizing his mistake, he rushes home, noting the familiar places as he heads to his neighborhood, Japantown. There’s the grocery store, Katsumoto Co. It now has a sign out front that says, “I am an American” (5), a response to the growing tension in the city between the Caucasians, or “ketos,” and people of Asian descent. There’s a Japanese school and a bathhouse, too—but the Japanese school closed; its teachers were taken away by the FBI shortly after the attack.

As Minnow approaches his neighborhood, he notices a group of keto boys following him. He also sees a group of Asian kids and notes the buttons pinned to their lapels; similar to the sign in the Katsumoto store window declaring an American identity, the buttons declare a Chinese identity. The Chinese boys run away as the ketos attack Minnow. They take his sketchbook, and one punches him in the face. Suddenly, Mas arrives with a group of friends. The ketos run away. Mas yells at Minnow for not coming straight home, but then he softens as the group discusses the situation and the impending relocation that has been the talk of the neighborhood since President Roosevelt set up the War Relocation Authority—part of an order for the internment of Japanese Americans. The boys joke about it, but Minnow can see they are scared.

Chapter 2 Summary: “What Stays, What Gives, What Goes”

Shig, 17. April-May 1942.

An order has been posted for the evacuation of part of Japantown. The area is just north of Shig’s apartment, but it includes his friends, Tommy and Stan. That night, Mas tells Shig and Minnow to start making lists for what to bring with them; Shig decides money and clothes are the most important things.

Over the next few days, signs go up advertising sales; the Japanese Americans in this part of town are allowed to take only two suitcases per person, which means large items, such as furniture and dining sets, must be sold. Shig helps the Katsumotos (Stan’s family) with a sale at their store. When Mrs. Katsumoto puts a sign in the window thanking her customers, Shig does not understand how she could thank the same ketos whose prejudice is behind the evacuation.

Shig is so angry over the unfairness of what is happening that he gets into a fight. His mother reminds him of the word “gaman” (31), which means to persevere or endure. She tells him this is how they will get through what is coming. Shig doesn’t accept it at first; his anger only grows as he watches his mother burn or sell his father’s things. However, he feels inspired when he watches Yum-yum, his girlfriend, play the piano (that she’s had to sell) in the middle of the street as it is loaded onto a moving truck. He finds an outlet for his anger through a small act of protest—handing out his father’s origami animals to the children boarding the buses to the incarceration camp.

Chapter 3 Summary: “I am Not Free”

Yum-yum, 16. May-June 1942.

At the camp, called Tanforan, Yum-yum and her mother are instantly separated from her nine-year-old brother, Fred, during the medical checks that are part of the camp entry process. The invasive examinations are humiliating, but Yum-yum is reunited with an acquaintance, Keiko. They have in common the fact that Keiko’s parents and Yum-yum’s father were taken away by the FBI just after Pearl Harbor because of their roles in the community.

The families are assigned barracks that are nothing more than converted horse stalls. There is no running water, no heat, and no furniture aside from cots. Keiko, Shig, and a girl named Bette help Yum-yum build furniture for her barrack. Yum-yum’s mother is sick, leaving Yum-yum in charge of Fred. At first, she tries hard to uphold responsibility to be the “obedient daughter” (62) her father encourages her to be, but it’s difficult. She starts to rebel by staying out late with her friends and drinking, even after her mother goes into the hospital. One night, Yum-yum spends the whole night kissing Shig. When she returns to her barracks, she discovers Fred missing. She gathers her friends to search and finds him visiting their mother in the hospital. The episode makes Yum-yum realize she is not alone; her friends came together to help her.

Chapter 4 Summary: “The Indomitable Bette Nakano”

Hiromi ‘Bette,’ 17. September-December 1942.

Bette is excited to be moving from Tanforan to a new camp in Utah. She sees the whole thing as “another adventure” (75), especially when she meets a handsome boy named Joe on the train. The new camp, Topaz, is in the middle of nowhere outside a quaint town called Delta. It’s much larger than Tanforan and surrounded by barbed-wire fences. Even with her optimistic outlook, Bette has trouble finding beauty in it.

A school is established and dances are organized. Bette is excited to dance with Joe, but the first dance is canceled because they couldn’t find a band willing to perform. Over the next few weeks, the community works to collect records so that a band won’t be necessary for the next dance. Frankie criticizes Bette for her optimism, causing a rift between them. The first snow comes shortly after, and Bette finds great joy in a snowball fight with her friends.

Thanksgiving arrives with a big feast and a dance. Bette eats her fair share and prepares for the dance, excited to finally dance with Joe. Unfortunately, Bette, like dozens of others, suffers food poisoning from the gravy and can’t go to the dance.

Joe stops coming around as much, but Bette is still excited to dance with him at the Christmas dance. However, when his name comes up on her dance card, Joe is nowhere to be found. Bette goes outside and discovers him kissing the daughter of one of the camp teachers. Devastated, Bette runs into Frankie who cheers her up and walks her back to the dance.

Chapters 1-4 Analysis

Each chapter in We Are Not Free is written from a different character’s perspective, and these first four chapters are told through a first-person point of view. Each character experiences the evacuation and relocation differently, and the chapter titles hint toward the unique thoughts and attitudes of each character. The first chapter’s title, “We Never Look Like Us,” refers to Minnow’s confusion as to why the ketos so negatively view him, his friends, and their relatives. While Minnow understands the fear caused by the attack on Pearl Harbor, he doesn’t understand why the ketos have turned on the “Nisei, second-generation Japanese-American citizens” (14). They have little connection with Japan, and most have never been there.

Like his brother, Shig also struggles. However, Shig is angry. In his chapter, “What Stays, What Gives, What Goes,” he struggles as first his neighbors and later his family prepare to leave their homes. He doesn’t understand why no one else is angry or how the adults around him can be kind and polite in the face of such adversity. Shig makes up lists of what he can take, what he must leave behind, and what must be sold. His lists are short and simple, often illogical. However, they change as he deals with his anger and finds an outlet for it. By conducting a quiet protest with the origami animals, Shig displays not acceptance but an understanding that a person must choose their battles wisely.

Yum-yum, Shig’s girlfriend, already lost her father before the evacuation orders come down. When it is time to leave, she must also give up her beloved piano. She plays it one last time in the middle of the street, inspiring those around her. However, Yum-yum is not inspired by herself. As her chapter’s title (“I am Not Free”) suggests, Yum-yum feels trapped. It is not the camp that makes her feel this way, though the fences and watchtowers don’t help—it is the responsibility placed on her shoulders by her father’s absence and her mother’s illness. It is the sense of being alone in her struggle. However, when her brother disappears, she realizes she is not alone when her friends come together to help her find him. This will be recurrent in the novel—the sense of family inspired by close friendships.

Bette is a bright, optimistic ball of energy. She refuses to let anything get her down. She looks at everything as an adventure and imagines her chance meeting with Joe on the train is the beginning of a great love story. As her chapter title suggests, Bette is bigger than life. “The Indomitable Bette Nakano” is exactly that: someone who cannot be defeated, not even by Frankie’s low burning anger. When Bette catches Joe in the arms of the only keto girl in camp, she doesn’t let that bring her down for long. Bette is a contrast to both Shig and Frankie, and her optimism inspires Frankie as hints of a future romance begin to bloom.