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Questions 27 & 28
In February 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the secretary of war to remove 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast and corral them into inland concentration camps. To be considered for release, they were required to answer the so-called loyalty questionnaire. Question 27 asked the inmates—who had been imprisoned without cause by the US military—whether they were willing to serve in combat for the US military. Question 28 asked them—many of whom American citizens who had never visited Japan—to renounce allegiance to the Japanese emperor. Answering these questions caused volatile divisions within the camps, tore families and friends apart, and had lasting repercussions in the decades postwar.
Questions 27 & 28 reaches backward and forward from the time of the questionnaire, chronicling the individuals who arrived in the US from Japan at the turn of the century, their children who came of age during war and incarceration, and their descendants who lived in its aftermath. Yamashita mixes fact with fiction and layers genres from James Bond movies to haiku to oral history, transfiguring an enormity of archival research into a chorus of stories. With her signature wit and aplomb, she gives voice to laborers, artists, scholars, informants, and activists who, over three generations, defined an immigrant community.
Questions 27 & 28 reaches backward and forward from the time of the questionnaire, chronicling the individuals who arrived in the US from Japan at the turn of the century, their children who came of age during war and incarceration, and their descendants who lived in its aftermath. Yamashita mixes fact with fiction and layers genres from James Bond movies to haiku to oral history, transfiguring an enormity of archival research into a chorus of stories. With her signature wit and aplomb, she gives voice to laborers, artists, scholars, informants, and activists who, over three generations, defined an immigrant community.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published April 28, 2026
About the author
Karen Tei Yamashita
26 books225 followersBorn January 8, 1951 in Oakland, California, Karen Tei Yamashita is a Japanese American writer and Associate Professor of Literature at University of California, Santa Cruz, where she teaches creative writing and Asian American literature. Her works, several of which contain elements of magic realism, include novels I Hotel (2010), Circle K Cycles (2001), Tropic of Orange (1997), Brazil-Maru (1992), and Through the Arc of the Rain Forest (1990). Tei Yamashita's novels emphasize the absolute necessity of polyglot, multicultural communities in an increasingly globalized age, even as they destabilize orthodox notions of borders and national/ethnic identity.
She has also written a number of plays, including Hannah Kusoh, Noh Bozos and O-Men which was produced by the Asian American theatre group, East West Players.
Yamashita is a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award for I Hotel.
She has also written a number of plays, including Hannah Kusoh, Noh Bozos and O-Men which was produced by the Asian American theatre group, East West Players.
Yamashita is a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award for I Hotel.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 26, 2025
Award quality. Questions 27 & 28 has a precise title but the narrative sprawls from before the Meiji restoration through the twentieth and across the pacific and national borders. The first section feels a bit overwhelming because it introduces many characters and is told in several narrative styles. There is no one voice in the novel as different migration stories are introduced and it felt like an arid, unwelcoming, and over complicated start for a reader. I enjoyed the pancho villa story but thought wtf are we in Mexico? Yet it’s structurally brilliant for obvious reasons. The next section of narratives starts with a pre-wwii mock naval battle by Japanese and American children (one of my favorites and is more traditional vignette that remixes the emotional tone). The angst increases with each story.
Blame for America’s concentration camps is placed in fear, ignorance, and distrust. In one of my favorite scenes, a young, confined mother talks with a young white social worker and we see a rare POV switch to those in power. She’s aware of the immediate problems and presented as well intentioned: “The lady doesn’t know Rosalie’s on her side. What side is that? She’ll have to find out. Rosalie scuffs the sandy soil under her boots and tries to decide on the correct attitude that will give her access to the room inside. Coyness might work with a man, but this woman will see through her ploy. A mixture of ingratiating stupidity requesting proper instruction, this might work.” To a degree, this helps mitigate history, but this frame of mind induces panic; this is the same way people might feel in the present. As we all know, Korematsu is still good law.
A timely novel that is formally bold and sensitive to the diversity of origin stories and experiences as well as the commonalities and structural ties between people.
Blame for America’s concentration camps is placed in fear, ignorance, and distrust. In one of my favorite scenes, a young, confined mother talks with a young white social worker and we see a rare POV switch to those in power. She’s aware of the immediate problems and presented as well intentioned: “The lady doesn’t know Rosalie’s on her side. What side is that? She’ll have to find out. Rosalie scuffs the sandy soil under her boots and tries to decide on the correct attitude that will give her access to the room inside. Coyness might work with a man, but this woman will see through her ploy. A mixture of ingratiating stupidity requesting proper instruction, this might work.” To a degree, this helps mitigate history, but this frame of mind induces panic; this is the same way people might feel in the present. As we all know, Korematsu is still good law.
A timely novel that is formally bold and sensitive to the diversity of origin stories and experiences as well as the commonalities and structural ties between people.
April 7, 2026
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5. TY Graywolf Press for the gifted copy!
The most layered “novel” I’ve read in recent years, and maybe ever? Reading this is like taking an entire semester course on the history of Japanese immigration to America. There are a lot of voices, a lot of themes, and a lot to unpack. I enjoyed enjoying playing detective and piecing it all together, but ultimately I would have appreciated more explanation. There are a lot of really amazing ideas here but they never all came together into a “novel” which is what it calls itself!
The most layered “novel” I’ve read in recent years, and maybe ever? Reading this is like taking an entire semester course on the history of Japanese immigration to America. There are a lot of voices, a lot of themes, and a lot to unpack. I enjoyed enjoying playing detective and piecing it all together, but ultimately I would have appreciated more explanation. There are a lot of really amazing ideas here but they never all came together into a “novel” which is what it calls itself!
May 17, 2026
This was the most non-fiction like fiction novel I have ever read, and I wanted so badly to like it. It covers such an important and shameful and still too unknown subject from American history that is tragically still extremely relevant to this day, and it does it in a really unique way. Unfortunately, I think I would have preferred if this had been a straightforward nonfiction book. The fiction elements, for me, muddied the water, even when I enjoyed them. Like, I had fun in the James Bond type sequence, but I still have no idea what was going on during it. I also noted that you get about halfway through the book before you are ever told what Questions 27 and 28 were, so unless you had preexisting historical knowledge or had read the back cover, you would just be really, really lost. This is one of those books that I think would be better taught in a history class than an English class, as there is no hand-holding or exposition given about the historical context and the book assumes you already know quite a bit, or that you have an impressive talent for names and dates. I think this book would better serve as a companion to other informational texts about this subject, rather than an introduction/overview of the subject itself. This is an important topic to be informed about, so I’m grateful for what new information I was able to glean from this, but I would direct other learners to other resources first.
May 21, 2026
While I am glad I read this book, and parts were enlightening for me, I found much of it difficult to follow. I believe I needed more context surrounding the material in the book (mostly written from the perspective of individuals of Japanese heritage who were relocated to camps in America). The organization of the material and the varied stories did not help me to follow what was happening as each new story began. I did learn a great deal, and the accounts of the people involved were gut wrenching. I now understand more about the terrible circumstances, how lives were ruined, and the long-term ramifications of the relocations. But, the book was more confusing due to the chronological order of the stories (with some later research into the background presented near the end). Perhaps if I were more knowledgeable before reading this book of the history, timelines, and vocabulary of this horrible period in the U.S., I’d have gotten more out of it or have found it easier to follow. I don’t recommend reading this book before reading something else that provides more details and context on this subject, which this book often didn’t provide.
June 16, 2026
went back and forth between 3 and 4 stars on this, it was a very interesting narrative style and incorporated a lot of historical documents which was very cool but I fear I just didn't like how some of the chapters were structured, it made jt hard to follow/track what was actually going on. I did still learn a lot about the internment camps but I feel like there was even more I didn't learn
June 13, 2026
This almost became one of my few Did Not Finish books. It does not read as a novel; I found it hard to make connections, as few concrete clues were given to guide the reader through very disparate entries. However, it did serve as a source of information about a dark blotch on United States history.
At the risk of revealing my ignorance, can anyone explain the question at the end of the book? What is the codified meaning of the last five digits of the WRA database? The only thing I’ve come up with is that it is a date. Or, has AI suggested, to reveal the inhumanity of reducing a person to a mere number?
At the risk of revealing my ignorance, can anyone explain the question at the end of the book? What is the codified meaning of the last five digits of the WRA database? The only thing I’ve come up with is that it is a date. Or, has AI suggested, to reveal the inhumanity of reducing a person to a mere number?
May 22, 2026
"Questions 27 and 28"was an interesting read, but it took me a while to realize it's a work of fiction. The chapters are structured like firsthand accounts connected to the Japanese internment experience. The shifting narratives and confusing timeline made the book hard to follow, and I found myself skimming some sections simply because they did not make much sense to me.
My favorites "stories" were “Richard X,” “Michi: Infamy,” “Yuki: Rashomon,” and “Harry: Enryo Syndrome.” “Richard X” was especially powerful because fragments of the Loyalty Questionnaire are woven throughout the story, serving as a constant reminder of how something as simple as a bureaucratic form could determine a person’s future. “Harry” also stood out because it pushes readers to think about race as a social construct and how quickly fear can turn an entire group into scapegoats.
What really resonated with me was the sheer injustice Japanese Americans faced. Families came to America chasing opportunity, only to encounter discrimination long before internment, including laws preventing them from owning land or becoming citizens. Reading about people born in the U.S., who had only ever known America as home and had never even stepped foot in Japan, yet were still viewed as outsiders or enemies, was especially heartbreaking. That level of cruelty and racism is revolting. During wartime, Japanese culture itself became so closely tied to Japanese nationalism that even preserving language or cultural identity became suspicious. Some parents taught their children Japanese because they feared they would be sent to a country the children had never known, yet doing so risked making them look even more suspicious.
"Questions 27&28" shows how oppression can be legalized when leaders decide they have the right to strip a group of people of their rights under the guise of military necessity. The plan was not simply to monitor Japanese Americans, it was mass evacuation from California’s coastal areas into isolated interior camps, with forced relocation and labor. American citizens were denied habeas corpus and basic constitutional protections. The Loyalty Questionnaire, specifically Questions 27 and 28, created an impossible situation. Many of the people expected to respond could not even read English fluently, yet their answers determined their fate. A “no-no” response labeled someone as disloyal and could result in transfer to segregated prisons. The questionnaire also created deep suspicion within the camps themselves, forcing people to question whom they could trust. One of the most disturbing parts of this book was learning that some Japanese Americans renounced their citizenship and, in doing so, became stateless. Congress renounced their citizenship in 1945, so they were rejected by their own country and told they belonged to another country that was not theirs. The idea that the American government essentially caused the Japanese Americans to become stateless is disgusting.
One part of the book I had never really considered was the impact on Native communities, since some internment camps were built on Indigenous land. Communities that had already endured generations of displacement and stolen land were expected to absorb yet another forcibly displaced population. That perspective is rarely discussed, and I appreciated the book for bringing attention to it. While I did not necessarily enjoy the fragmented structure of this book, the historical themes and moral questions it raises made it worthwhile. More than anything, it reminded me of how dangerous fear, racism, and political power becomes when leaders decide they have the authority to target an entire group of innocent people.
My favorites "stories" were “Richard X,” “Michi: Infamy,” “Yuki: Rashomon,” and “Harry: Enryo Syndrome.” “Richard X” was especially powerful because fragments of the Loyalty Questionnaire are woven throughout the story, serving as a constant reminder of how something as simple as a bureaucratic form could determine a person’s future. “Harry” also stood out because it pushes readers to think about race as a social construct and how quickly fear can turn an entire group into scapegoats.
What really resonated with me was the sheer injustice Japanese Americans faced. Families came to America chasing opportunity, only to encounter discrimination long before internment, including laws preventing them from owning land or becoming citizens. Reading about people born in the U.S., who had only ever known America as home and had never even stepped foot in Japan, yet were still viewed as outsiders or enemies, was especially heartbreaking. That level of cruelty and racism is revolting. During wartime, Japanese culture itself became so closely tied to Japanese nationalism that even preserving language or cultural identity became suspicious. Some parents taught their children Japanese because they feared they would be sent to a country the children had never known, yet doing so risked making them look even more suspicious.
"Questions 27&28" shows how oppression can be legalized when leaders decide they have the right to strip a group of people of their rights under the guise of military necessity. The plan was not simply to monitor Japanese Americans, it was mass evacuation from California’s coastal areas into isolated interior camps, with forced relocation and labor. American citizens were denied habeas corpus and basic constitutional protections. The Loyalty Questionnaire, specifically Questions 27 and 28, created an impossible situation. Many of the people expected to respond could not even read English fluently, yet their answers determined their fate. A “no-no” response labeled someone as disloyal and could result in transfer to segregated prisons. The questionnaire also created deep suspicion within the camps themselves, forcing people to question whom they could trust. One of the most disturbing parts of this book was learning that some Japanese Americans renounced their citizenship and, in doing so, became stateless. Congress renounced their citizenship in 1945, so they were rejected by their own country and told they belonged to another country that was not theirs. The idea that the American government essentially caused the Japanese Americans to become stateless is disgusting.
One part of the book I had never really considered was the impact on Native communities, since some internment camps were built on Indigenous land. Communities that had already endured generations of displacement and stolen land were expected to absorb yet another forcibly displaced population. That perspective is rarely discussed, and I appreciated the book for bringing attention to it. While I did not necessarily enjoy the fragmented structure of this book, the historical themes and moral questions it raises made it worthwhile. More than anything, it reminded me of how dangerous fear, racism, and political power becomes when leaders decide they have the authority to target an entire group of innocent people.
May 22, 2026
I really wanted to love, not just like, this novel. And I might have if there were one character you could follow through this complicated story of Japanese immigration to the US. I almost think that Karen Tei Yamashita went back and forth about whether to make this book fiction or non-fiction and decided to go with a combo which seems to be bursting with facts and missing the human touch.
Question 27 on the loyalty questionnaire given to people in internment camps to ask whether they would be willing to serve in the US military. Question 28 asked them--a great many of whom were US citizens who'd never been to Japan-- to renounce loyalty to the Japanese emperor. The reactions to these questions among the people forcibly interned in the back of beyond is real human drama, We don't get to see this, which is a huge miss.
What Questions 27 and 28 does is let us see the breadth of Japanese immigration from the 19th century. The depth of the research is impressive and I look forward to Yamashita next work. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital review copy. This is my honest review.
Question 27 on the loyalty questionnaire given to people in internment camps to ask whether they would be willing to serve in the US military. Question 28 asked them--a great many of whom were US citizens who'd never been to Japan-- to renounce loyalty to the Japanese emperor. The reactions to these questions among the people forcibly interned in the back of beyond is real human drama, We don't get to see this, which is a huge miss.
What Questions 27 and 28 does is let us see the breadth of Japanese immigration from the 19th century. The depth of the research is impressive and I look forward to Yamashita next work. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital review copy. This is my honest review.
June 30, 2026
I learned many things. I knew the basic outline of the story of the camps before reading the book, and this book puts a lot of flesh on that skeleton.
The writing is done well, immersing us in the story when at its best. And it is an important set of stories. It is important to know that there are archived memos detailing that the US Army knew that there was no military need to force everyone (west of Phoenix) of Japanese descent into concentration camps in 1942.
But the book is encyclopedic and wanders widely on the map. I rolled my eyes at the chapters written from the point of view of a camera, or a sheet of photographic film. The chapter from the point of view of a trombone was an engaging story, but I had to keep reminding myself who the "I" was. The nearly half page of hex code download of an iris scan served only to tell me that the author chased down every rabbit hole.
And after all that, there can be no doubt that the Japanese internment camps were not an aberration. This national crime was very much consistent with the rest of the historical behavior of the US.
The writing is done well, immersing us in the story when at its best. And it is an important set of stories. It is important to know that there are archived memos detailing that the US Army knew that there was no military need to force everyone (west of Phoenix) of Japanese descent into concentration camps in 1942.
But the book is encyclopedic and wanders widely on the map. I rolled my eyes at the chapters written from the point of view of a camera, or a sheet of photographic film. The chapter from the point of view of a trombone was an engaging story, but I had to keep reminding myself who the "I" was. The nearly half page of hex code download of an iris scan served only to tell me that the author chased down every rabbit hole.
And after all that, there can be no doubt that the Japanese internment camps were not an aberration. This national crime was very much consistent with the rest of the historical behavior of the US.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This is a 4.5 rounded up to a 5 because I think it is incredibly well done but at the same time, I don't know that it will reach wider audiences because it is challenging on many levels. Karen Tei Yamashita digs deep into pre-WWII Japanese-American history through the war and beyond to create a complex narrative around the Japanese-American experience. Despite being fairly well-versed in these histories, I found myself having to Google various names and events. I bet there will be many a reader who will not even realize that these are real, historical figures! But seriously, look it up because it will reveal so much. I really liked how Yamashita utilized a large number of voices and experimented with different styles to give each part a distinct voice. At the same time, she succeeded in maintaining a strong connecting line throughout. This book is a college course in book form.
June 30, 2026
I enjoyed a lot of this book and looked up more than I ever have for a fiction novel. I know more about real people that were in the internment camps, but I don't feel like I have any more of a linear understanding of the experience. It's more like you are standing in a wave and it all washes over you. I feel like if I had a better memory, I would catch more connections between the sections, but I didn't have the energy to go back very often to see where pieces fit together. I highly recommend for someone who has a good grasp of the history and wants to get a feel of the people; not so much for people who are just starting to dip their toes into the topic.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
This was truly a work of art. What Yamashita has done, weaving historical archival material as part of the story about Japanese Americans before, during and after WWII was so original and extraordinarily well done. And the so called loyalty questions put forth to Americans who were incarcerated in American concentration camps and how it splinted families and communities. This also depicts how the more time goes by, the more things stay the same. An important read especially in today’s times.
I received an arc from the publisher but all opinions are my own.
I received an arc from the publisher but all opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
As I started reading this book, I was initially confused. But I know just enough history to see what Yamashita was doing with this book and I appreciated it greatly. I confess that I ran out of time and didn't finish it, but after it is published I will get a hard copy and tackle it. It's a lot, but I feel like it could end up being one of the more important books published this year. I read enough to get that feeling and thus my five star rating.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It will be appreciated.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It will be appreciated.
June 11, 2026
Yamashita has meticulously researched records of oral histories of the Japanese experience of immigration and settlement in America. She shares that, along with imagined conversations, poetry, quotes and archival records of the loyalty questions are that tore apart a traumatized community. This is not an easy read but gives us a multi-faceted view of people’s experiences. Yamashita uses a different historical character to describe different aspects of the immigration,settlement, wartime hysteria which led to removal from the west coast, camp life, No Nos, resettlement, andcourt cases.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
This book is important. But, more to the point, it is really really good. Karen Tei Yamashita takes people reduced by the government to stripped-down, forgotten data and, with water and light, grows them into the beautiful irreducible stories they were meant to be.
"Answering yes-yes makes the game shorter," she writes, "but you don't necessarily get out or win."
"Answering yes-yes makes the game shorter," she writes, "but you don't necessarily get out or win."
June 17, 2026
Challenging to read but fascinating. As I settled in to an understanding of what she was doing (more what I expect from creative nonfiction than from a novel), I was deeply engaged and, about halfway through, couldn’t put it down.
June 27, 2026
There were a lot of interesting and educational vignettes here, but I had a hard time following everything, and I’m sure I missed some of the connections in the stories and characters. So it could go 3.5 for good writing, but it’s a 3 star for me.
May 11, 2026
Picked this up from the library, and glad I did. The idea of this is already a hell of a thing (go through the questionnaire results that were given in the Japanese concentration camps, find out loose biographical details around a given respondent, and write a short fiction piece based on the information she was able to find), but the blend of fiction and fact and the sheer range of genre she is able to cover with each piece is genuinely astounding. Highly recommended library read
June 7, 2026
Not my style of book. Looks good, but too disjointed for me.
June 16, 2026
Across a full career, Karen Tei Yamashita has written plays, stories, and novels. In this book, the novel form takes on a fresh shape, reflecting patterns of history and the ways an archive can encompass and reveal a community, an era, and a country’s values. I was struck by its power.
The narrative in Questions 27 & 28 centers on the period from 1942 through 1945, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a WWII executive order authorizing the uprooting of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast and detention in an archipelago of hastily built camps. (For generations, these were called “internment camps”; many now consider “concentration camps” more accurate.) The story reaches backward and forward across decades, but to call it a novel about the camps is like saying Ulysses is a novel about a day in British-held Dublin.
The title refers to two queries on the form that detainees needed to fill out in order to get released. The first asks if they — who have lost their freedom —are willing to serve in the U.S. military. The second asks if they renounce all allegiance to Japan (where most of them had never been). The answers cause generational faultlines that reverberate violently inside the barbed wire and beyond.
Characters roll through the narrative like files on carts, connected more by adjacent experiences than by direct interaction. Many passages reference true accounts; the author then shapes fact into fiction for dramatic coherence. (The book includes a bibliography for each section so that readers can pursue those threads.)
Near the midpoint, for example, in a chapter titled “Miné: Citizen,” we meet a young artist, Miné, in conversation with a photographer. As they walk through the desert examining petroglyphs, she sketches him. The real-life Miné Okubo was in her 20s when she and her family were sent to the Topaz camp in the Utah desert. Detainees were rarely allowed to photograph their inhumane conditions, but she drew hundreds of vivid sketches that bore witness. After the war, she pulled them together and published an early graphic memoir before that genre existed. She called it Citizen 13660, the inmate number the government had assigned her. It was later republished and entered as testimony in California’s hearings on reparations.
Miné is fascinating, and I watched for her to reappear beyond her initial few pages. Unfortunately, she never did (except in the book’s endnotes). Yamashita’s range of characters is as rich as James Joyce’s in Ulysses, but in a novel that seems determined to build emotional momentum, the decision to pull some of the liveliest characters off stage so quickly felt like a shame.
Still, I dog-eared many pages so that I could return to them. Some include chilling exchanges, like one involving an arrest after a false accusation. The detained man asks the police to tell his family where they’re taking him. “No, Harry, where you are going, nobody knows where you are going,” the officer responds. “I won’t tell nobody, and you will be there for a long time.” A footnote points to the quote’s presence in the Online Archive of California.
That archive may also hold the seeds of rapprochement. In an amazing scene, two dogged researchers from the present witness (as “future ghosts”) a 1942 gathering in which federal officials debate the legality of detainment. The subsequent internal wrangling at the Supreme Court, which ultimately approved the policy, might sound dry in lesser hands, but Yamashita fills it with tragic weight. As the researchers look on, Justice Robert Jackson utters his enduring — and damning — dissent:
“The Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim…”
In Questions 27 & 28, Karen Tei Yamashita has created a stunning indictment of the fallout from two loaded queries on an obscure, long-ago bureaucratic questionnaire. In the process, she brings the historical archive, in all its messiness, to life. See my full review at Washington Independent Review of Books: https://www.washingtonindependentrevi...
The narrative in Questions 27 & 28 centers on the period from 1942 through 1945, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a WWII executive order authorizing the uprooting of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast and detention in an archipelago of hastily built camps. (For generations, these were called “internment camps”; many now consider “concentration camps” more accurate.) The story reaches backward and forward across decades, but to call it a novel about the camps is like saying Ulysses is a novel about a day in British-held Dublin.
The title refers to two queries on the form that detainees needed to fill out in order to get released. The first asks if they — who have lost their freedom —are willing to serve in the U.S. military. The second asks if they renounce all allegiance to Japan (where most of them had never been). The answers cause generational faultlines that reverberate violently inside the barbed wire and beyond.
Characters roll through the narrative like files on carts, connected more by adjacent experiences than by direct interaction. Many passages reference true accounts; the author then shapes fact into fiction for dramatic coherence. (The book includes a bibliography for each section so that readers can pursue those threads.)
Near the midpoint, for example, in a chapter titled “Miné: Citizen,” we meet a young artist, Miné, in conversation with a photographer. As they walk through the desert examining petroglyphs, she sketches him. The real-life Miné Okubo was in her 20s when she and her family were sent to the Topaz camp in the Utah desert. Detainees were rarely allowed to photograph their inhumane conditions, but she drew hundreds of vivid sketches that bore witness. After the war, she pulled them together and published an early graphic memoir before that genre existed. She called it Citizen 13660, the inmate number the government had assigned her. It was later republished and entered as testimony in California’s hearings on reparations.
Miné is fascinating, and I watched for her to reappear beyond her initial few pages. Unfortunately, she never did (except in the book’s endnotes). Yamashita’s range of characters is as rich as James Joyce’s in Ulysses, but in a novel that seems determined to build emotional momentum, the decision to pull some of the liveliest characters off stage so quickly felt like a shame.
Still, I dog-eared many pages so that I could return to them. Some include chilling exchanges, like one involving an arrest after a false accusation. The detained man asks the police to tell his family where they’re taking him. “No, Harry, where you are going, nobody knows where you are going,” the officer responds. “I won’t tell nobody, and you will be there for a long time.” A footnote points to the quote’s presence in the Online Archive of California.
That archive may also hold the seeds of rapprochement. In an amazing scene, two dogged researchers from the present witness (as “future ghosts”) a 1942 gathering in which federal officials debate the legality of detainment. The subsequent internal wrangling at the Supreme Court, which ultimately approved the policy, might sound dry in lesser hands, but Yamashita fills it with tragic weight. As the researchers look on, Justice Robert Jackson utters his enduring — and damning — dissent:
“The Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim…”
In Questions 27 & 28, Karen Tei Yamashita has created a stunning indictment of the fallout from two loaded queries on an obscure, long-ago bureaucratic questionnaire. In the process, she brings the historical archive, in all its messiness, to life. See my full review at Washington Independent Review of Books: https://www.washingtonindependentrevi...
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