Journey to Topaz by Yoshiko Uchida is illustrated by Donald Carrick and gives its audience a true glimpse of reality. Carrick’s illustrations certainly show the heartache and horror of this little girl's life and the lives of her Japanese-American family. In December 1941, when war broke out between the United States and Japan, Yuki Sakane can no longer look forward to the Christmas holiday. Unfortunately, her parents had come to America from Japan and had never become American Citizens. Because of this, they are called “enemy aliens” and looked upon with suspicion. Her father is arrested and sent to San Francisco, and after one visit from the family, he is sent to a P.O.W. camp in Montana. Due to an executive order signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Yuki and her remaining family members are shipped to live in isolation, behind barbed wire in inland camps. Two-thirds of these Japanese people were American citizens. Because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans felt as though Japanese people living in Hawaii were responsible for sabotage, so the F.B.I. evacuates 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. World War II ensues. Yuki, her mother, and Ken, her brother, are sent to live in a horse stall in Tanforan Race Track Assembly Center. She becomes friends with a girl named Emi and her grandparents who move with her and the family to Topaz, Utah. Her father rejoins the family at Topaz after he is cleared. Ken enlists in the American Army to show his patriotism, and Yuki is mortified when her new friend, an elderly man named Mr. Kurihara, is shot and killed by a guard. They experience many hardships including the dust storms in Utah. In 1943, Yuki must part with everyone to whom she has grown close but is glad to be out of the desert when her father gains permission to seek employment in Salt Lake City, Utah.
This book was very enlightening. I knew that after the beginning of World War II things in America got tough for the Japanese, but I had no idea what these families really went through. I didn’t know that they were relocated to camps with barbed wire that surrounded entire families. I can not believe how these people were treated according to Uchida. I especially liked that Yuki’s character was so selfless and that even though she had a chance to get out, she felt as though she was abandoning those left behind. To me, this ridiculous form of holding families hostage seems like a miniature Holocaust. Until reading this book, I had no idea that Americans supported this torture tactic.
As a teacher and as an American, I know that just because you are of a certain race doesn’t mean that you are part of a terror plot. I guess it can be called tolerance or understanding. I also could not imagine putting children in those circumstances. I am happy that everything turned out as well as it could for this family and families like them because they certainly had it rough, and reading this book was an eye-opening experience.
Yoshiko Uchida also wrote Sumi and the Goat and the Tokyo Express, Hisako’s Mysteries, In-Between Miya, Sumi’s Special Happening, The Sea of Gold and Other Tales from Japan, Sumi’s Prize, The Forever Christmas Tree, and Rokubei and the Thousand Rice Bowls. It is no surprise that Uchida wrote mostly about Japanese ancestry and living in America during World War II because that experience was her childhood. She wrote a lot about Japanese children as she has visited the country several times, but Journey to Topaz is in essence about her experience as she and her family was actually sent to the Relocation Center in Topaz (Uchida, 1971).
From reading this book, I learned that children’s literature has the ability to tell a true, fictional, or semi-true story. Children’s literature can also be an outlet for expression. I am so glad that Yoshika Uchida got to tell her story from another character’s perspective, and this book would be an excellent teaching tool for a history class learning about WWII.
Uchida, Y. (1971). Journey to Topaz. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
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