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Floating Home (short story)

• Short Stories
• Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
• Historical Fiction
• Facing reality, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Reunion, Working class struggles
• Widely available

Short story about a family returning to Little Tokyo from Rohwer . When fourteen-year-old Mari returns home with her parents, she expects to go to their old house, but is dismayed when they go to a run down residential hotel instead. Her father explains to her that they had rented the house they had lived in before the war, and they it was now being rented to someone else. Mari decides to walk to the house to take a last look. She finds an African American girl about her age on the swing in front. Initially suspicious, the girl becomes friendlier when Mari tells her why she and her family had to leave and invites her inside.

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