displacement (book)
Creators: kiku hughes
Graphic novel set in 2016 whose protagonist, sixteen-year-old "Kiku Hughes," begins to experience strange episodes of time travel that take her back to her grandmother's wartime exclusion and incarceration at Tanforan and Topaz . Completely lost at first, "Kiku" comes of age in the concentration camps, making close friends, building community, and enjoying a romance with another teenage girl. Back in the present, she and her mother—who reveals that she has also experienced such episodes of "displacement"—discuss the importance of their family history and the need to use that knowledge to protest on behalf of others.
Raised in Seattle, the daughter of a Sansei mother and white father, Hughes told Mia Nakaji Monnier that she was inspired to write the book in part due to racist campaign rhetoric from then presidential candidate Donald Trump that she saw as paralleling the kind of rhetoric that led to the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. She also wanted to write about her grandmother's wartime experiences, but felt she didn't have enough information to do a non-fiction book. Hughes also drew on Miné Okubo 's classic graphic novel Citizen 13660 and on resources from Densho, where she was an artist-in-residence in 2018.
While the depictions of life in the concentration camps is mostly accurate, there are a few small misstatements, including the oft repeated claim that anyone of 1/16th Japanese ancestry was forcibly removed and incarcerated (p. 41; for the actual policy, see Mixed-Marriage Policy/Mixed-Blood Policy ); noting that a white teacher at Topaz was paid twice as much as a Nisei teacher (p. 161; white professionals were paid ten to twenty times as much as inmate professionals in camp); and a scene in which one of Kiku's friends is sent to Tule Lake right after the " loyalty questionnaire " episode (p. 184, segregation took place six months or more after the administration of the questionnaire).
Might also like Citizen 13660 by Miné Okubo; Those Who Helped Us by Ken Mochizuki and Kiku Hughes; They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, art by Harmony Becker
| Author | Kiku Hughes |
|---|---|
| Pages | 285 |
| Publication Date | 2020 |
| Awards | <a class="external text" href="https://www.apalaweb.org/2021-asian-pacific-american-award-for-literature-winners/" rel="nofollow">2021 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, Asian/Pacific American Librarians Associations, Honor Title for Young Adult Literature</a> |
For More Information
Publisher website: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250193537/displacement
Monnier, Mia Nakaji. "Sci-Fi Graphic Novel 'Displacement' Confronts the Trauma of Incarceration," Los Angeles Review of Books , Oct. 9, 2021.
Reviews
Derlaga, Pearl. School Library Journal , July 1, 2020. ["Reluctant readers will be pulled in by the book’s exceptional design; the judiciously varied panel sizes and layouts coupled with gutter-breaking illustrations cinematically move the story along.]
Kirkus Reviews , May 16, 2020. [" Hughes takes inspiration from her own family’s story, deftly balancing complicated national history with explorations of cultural dislocation and biracial identity."]
Lee, Michelle. The Horn Book Magazine , Sept/Oct. 2020. ["This graphic novel blends historical fact and science fiction into an enthralling time-travel tale."]
Niiya, Brian. "15 Books About Japanese American WWII Incarceration for Readers of All Ages." Densho Catalyst, Aug. 16, 2023. ["Though perhaps a bit didactic, the text believably conveys a young person’s excitement at learning their family history in the context of current events."]
Nimura, Tamiko. "Kiku Hughes' graphic novel Displacement addresses the intergenerational trauma of Japanese American incarceration through a story of time travel," International Examiner , Nov. 3, 2020. ["A time-travel graphic novel about intergenerational Japanese American camp history is a surprise. But even for readers versed in this history, Kiku Hughes’s Displacement is a powerful innovation in camp literature and Japanese American literature overall."]
Publishers Weekly . ["Though Kiku doesn’t exert her will on the past, Hughes centers that powerlessness to create a compelling story about an oft-overlooked period of U.S. aggression against its own citizens."]