Topaz in Literature
Yoshiko Uchida's young adult novel Journey to Topaz recounts the story of Yuki, a young Japanese American girl, whose world is disrupted when, shortly after Pearl Harbor, she and her family must leave their comfortable home in the Berkeley suburbs for the dusty barracks of Topaz. The book is largely based on Uchida's personal experiences: she and her family were interned at Topaz for three years. Julie Otsuka's Novel "When The Emperor Was Divine" tells the story of a family forced to relocate from Berkeley, CA to Topaz in September 1942. The minimalist novel confronts the issues of freedom, loyalty, and identity for the Japanese American Family during World War II. The characters must adjust from their comfortable life in California to the uncertainty of the camps and then return to a town that is not what it once was.
Read more about this topic: Topaz War Relocation Center
Famous quotes containing the words topaz and/or literature:
“Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Views of women, on one side, as inwardly directed toward home and family and notions of men, on the other, as outwardly striving toward fame and fortune have resounded throughout literature and in the texts of history, biology, and psychology until they seem uncontestable. Such dichotomous views defy the complexities of individuals and stifle the potential for people to reveal different dimensions of themselves in various settings.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)