The typical teenage activities – going to school, hanging out with friends, and starting to experience life before becoming an adult in a nurturing environment - should be part of every childhood. However, this was not the case for the young Japanese people living on the West Coast, as they were prematurely ripped from their homes after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Shortly after the United States entered World War II, racism against Asians started running rampant. Traci Chee’s heartbreaking novel We Are Not Free perfectly captures the discrimination and struggles Japanese Americans living on the West Coast faced during World War II. Set in a neighborhood in San Francisco, the book uses fourteen different perspectives of young Japanese Americans to provide insight into the conditions they faced after being evicted from their homes. Readers learn about the nuances and difficulties each had to face through these unique people.

     The novel starts with Minoru “Minnow” Ito and his experience at school. He is part of a group of 14 Japanese friends, each of whose point of view Chee touches on in the book. Before being sent to internment camps, readers see that Minnow lives a semi-normal life; he loves to paint and hang out with friends and family. However, before racism at the federal level kicks in, people on the street are already harassing Japanese Americans; on top of constant verbal harassment, physical violence is commonplace. White people move in groups, jumping on any Asian person they can find. It gets to a point where Chinese people buy buttons that say “I am Chinese” to avoid attacks. Shortly after, the mass incarcerations begin. Some believed that Japanese people on the West Coast, the side closest to Japan, were all spies for Japan who wanted to attack the United States directly. However, these innocent people want to live in peace, with nobody to rely on but each other. Instead, frustration and panic run high in the neighborhood, and life is flipped upside down, as seen through the first three perspectives: Minnow, Shig, and Yum-Yum, respectively.

     The government sends all Japanese Americans inland, first to a remote place in California, then slowly, further and further, towards the center of the US. Due to this, Japanese people had to sell everything they couldn’t carry, which led to garage sales of priceless family possessions for mere cents. The conditions at these camps are unhabitable and extraordinarily harsh. Chee’s masterful integration of multiple perspectives shows each person’s unique situation while dealing with inadequate food, water, shelter, and hygiene. One example is Amy “Yum-Yum” Oishi, a 16-year-old girl whose mother falls severely ill and whose father was taken by the FBI a few weeks before Amy is transported to the internment camps, leaving her to take care of her little brother by herself. The importance and value of family, friendship, and community developed in these internment camps due to unfair treatment. No matter what, they must hold the people they love close, as they could disappear at any moment. When neighborhood friends reunited at the camp, Amy says, “All around me, my friends are making tea, tuning a Silvertone radio I recognize as Mas’s, shuffling a deck of playing cards, talking, joking, laughing. Outside is the camp, the barbed wire, the guard towers, the city, the country that hates us. We are not free. But we are not alone.”

     We Are Not Free provides valuable insight into an important historical topic. Readers can look deeper into the lessons learned - treasuring your loved ones, being resilient in tough times, and how life is sometimes unfair. Applying this realization to real-world situations forces readers to put a lot of thought into the current state of the world. People around the globe face painful discrimination causing suffering that could make someone think twice before committing such atrocities. Chee’s novel invokes a feeling of compassion and intense emotion. It is worth a read, if not for the amazing writing and beautiful images painted on the pages, then for the critical lessons learned and insight into a topic you may have never heard before.