Set in the ethnic neighborhoods of Seattle during World War II and Japanese American internment camps of the era, this debut novel tells the heartwarming story of widower Henry Lee, his father, and his first love Keiko Okabe.

"Mike is a Japanese American chef and Benson is a Black day care teacher. They've been together for a few years, but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. When Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives for a visit, Mike flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together and...

Rachel Kalama was quarantined for most of her life at the isolated leprosy settlement of Kalaupapa-- and forced to give up her daughter at birth. Ruth is taken to the Kapi'olani Home for Girls in Honolulu, and adopted by a Japanese couple who raise her on a farm in California. During World War II Ruth and her husband suffer internment at Manzanar Relocation Camp. After the war, she receives a letter from Rachel. As the two meet and come to love one...

Drawing from interviews and oral histories, chronicles the history of Japanese American survivors of internment camps.

"Fred Korematsu liked listening to music on the radio, playing tennis, and hanging around with his friends--just like lots of other Americans. But everything changed when the United States went to war with Japan in 1941 and the government forced all people of Japanese ancestry to leave their homes on the West Coast and move to distant prison camps. This included Fred, whose parents had immigrated to the United States from Japan many years before....

"The swimmers are unknown to each other except through their private routines (slow lane, fast lane), and the solace each takes in their morning or afternoon laps. But when a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, they are cast out into an unforgiving world. One of these swimmers is Alice, who is slowly losing her memory. For Alice, the pool was a final stand against the darkness of her encroaching dementia. Without the fellowship of other swimmers...

"Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki's older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new...