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Search tags: nisei
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review 2018-01-07 00:15
Great Nisei/Canadian-Dream historical novel
Floating City - Kerri Sakamoto

Really enjoyed the historical detail in this; the Nisei experience on Canada's west coast is fascinating, and I've only read a few perspectives on it. Authentic-feeling story of a Canadian-born son of Japanese parents from the 1930s-1980s. Starts with childhood experiences living on a floating house on the BC coast and follows through the internment and mountain camps of WWII, setting out to Toronto in the postwar period to build a life, dreaming and working toward success, and dealing with the fallout of letting ambition lead to selfishness. There's a strong fantastic/spiritual/magical realist element throughout, based on legends, dreams and altered perceptions. Very firmly in the literary fiction tradition, with some themes that don't entirely link up. I read a lot of genre fiction and YA, so I wasn't really up for the dark period in the last third, but I liked the earlier bits and the resolution. On the whole, less dark and depraved than a lot of adult literary fiction; it manages to convey a sense of hope, optimism and potential throughout. Very cool Canadian perspective, and it feels authentic enough that I was sad there aren't floating cities in Toronto's harbour yet.

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review 2001-01-01 00:00
Nisei Daughter
Nisei Daughter - Monica Itoi Sone Incredible.This memoir reads like a novel, giving great depth to a disturbing chapter in US history, but also telling the story of a kid trying to reconcile being American and Japanese at the same time. The author's father owned a skid row hotel in Seattle, and her family was imprisoned with many other Japanese-Americans during WWII. I thought of this book often after 9/11/01, when anti-midddle-eastern sentiment reached a disturbing peak even in my ultra-liberal neighborhood.
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