Sylvia And Aki

Family is another theme integral to the novel, specifically familial support and familial separation/reunion. For Sylvia and Aki, as children, without family, their endurance trials would be exponentially harder.

Sylvia’s family advocates for her and her brothers from the beginning. When Westminster accepts Sylvia’s cousins but not her and her siblings based purely on the color of their skin, Sylvia’s aunt immediately refuses to register any of the children. Hearing about this, Gonzalo not only meets with the school administration to demand inclusion but also petitions other Latinx families to join the cause, thereby expanding the fight beyond his family to all Latinx children. Without Gonzalo, there would be no trial. More importantly for Sylvia, without her family’s advocacy and support, she might not have realized her and her family’s dream of attaining a quality education and breaking through the cycles of poverty and oppression that encapsulated the barrio, achieving the degrees that her parents could not. As Sylvia notes, Gonzalo was very “brave” to fight like he did, and she was incredibly proud of him.

Family is also important to Aki, especially during this period of forced incarceration. However, her family’s goal is merely to stay together. The Munemitsus are a close family, dependent on each other for even their livelihood—as they sort family photographs in preparation for forced removal, Aki’s mother reminisces about Seiko’s birth in the United States. As an American citizen, Seiko can own land, but their father cannot; even though Pop works the farmland, the deed is in Seiko’s name. This technicality indicates the tenuous legal ties they have with their life in the United States. Pop is also the first to be taken away—to a separate, harsher camp—thereby creating the first fracture in the family. Aki is separated from her mother and brother when she gets sick and is forced to travel to Poston on her own despite her young age. Later, Seiko leaves Poston for work in Denver, further fracturing their family structure. The long separations from family—broken only by censored letters—take their toll: By the time Aki reunites with Pop, she wonders if he will recognize her (she, in fact, almost doesn’t recognize him). It is not until after the war ends that Aki’s family is finally fully reunited. While her family would also make important contributions to their community, like Gonzalo, their main importance in the novel is to stay together and help each other endure the hardships and humiliations of unjust incarceration.

In this way, although they played different roles in the story, Sylvia and Aki’s families were integral to the events of the book, whether as advocates or solid support, despite the forces attempting to tear them apart.

Like Family, friendship is another key theme of the book—titular, in fact. Sylvia and Aki’s friendship, while unlikely given the circumstances, pushes back against the “separate but equal” justification for white racism and perceived superiority depicted in the novel. It also pushes back against the covert “hierarchy” this racism creates, with whites on top, Asians the “model minority” (a myth) as a buffer in the middle, and BIPOC ethnicities (e.g., Latinx) at the bottom. This is reflected in Aki’s Westminster class photo, indicating that although she is not white, Westminster accepted her but not Sylvia. Sylvia’s family also rents the house and farmland from Aki’s family during their incarceration, indicating that while Aki might be able to return home one day, doing so will require Sylvia’s family to leave, further widening the social divide between them.

However, just as Gonzalo pushed for integration in schools, so, too, does Sylvia look past both the “model minority” myth and skin color to find and celebrate her commonalities with Aki: their love of traditional dolls, their farming families, and their unjust encirclement by deadly fences. Sylvia is curious about Aki from the beginning, finding Aki’s belongings and caring for her doll. She sympathizes with Aki when they meet in Poston and initiates their friendship through letters. By the time Aki returns home after the war, the girls are fast friends despite the real-life frictions that are meant to pull them apart, exchanging dolls when Sylvia moves back to Santa Ana.

During the time they spend together, their friendship is unmarred by any racial tension. When Sylvia says that Keiko likes empanadas, Aki’s reply is, “I like that” (124). That acceptance reflects the openness and welcome the two girls demonstrate to each other. Sylvia also helps Aki find some of the good that came out of her incarceration, saying, “[…] If you hadn’t been forced to leave, I wouldn’t have been able to come here. And I never would have met you” (126). While Aki rightly feels that being sent to Poston was bad and nothing would ever change that, she adds, “But, yes, I can still see how some good came from it” (126).

Sylvia and Aki remain friends even now, proving that unity and diversity are more powerful than racism and segregation. Like family, their friendship has the power to break boundaries and provide stalwart support, helping each other endure some of the most difficult times in their lives. Just by being friends, these women fight back against the white-centric racism, prejudice, and discrimination leveled at them and emerge victorious.