Tidbits of historical analysis dot the text, as with the comparison of Japanese freedom to that of emancipated black slaves:
In the government's eyes a free man now, [Ko] sat, like those black slaves you hear about who, when they got word of their freedom at the end of the Civil War, just did not know where else to go or what else to do and ended up back on the plantation, rooted there out of habit or lethargy or fear.
A second example contrasts the internees with "an Indian who turned up one Saturday billing himself as a Sioux chief, wearing bear claws and head feathers." His dance, appropriate to time and place, meets with the internees' approval as they identify with Caucasian attempts at racial cleansing of Native Americans, which lasted three centuries in contrast to the internees' three years. These philosophical comments set the Japanese experience in context with every citizen's experience with democracy, whether Irish American, African American, Asian American, or Native American. Well placed segments of dialogue provide the reader a snatch of conversation among internees — for example, the exchange between Jeanne's parents:
Mama said, "Ko."
No answer.
"What?"
"What are we going to do?"
"Wait."
"For what?" she asked.
"Listen to me. I have an idea."
The rhythms of exchange between Jeanne's parents delineate the style of everyday communication, which, against a backdrop of camp tension, can explode into harsh words, suspicions, drunken singing of the Japanese national anthem, or childish ranting and sloganeering. Yet, the release provided by incendiary or emotional words supplants the need to use fists, guns, or sabotage to combat unlawful incarceration. Like the valve on a steam engine, language is an important outlet to pent-up hostilities.
