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readtmc 's review for:
Displacement
by Kiku Hughes
DISPLACEMENT is Kiku Hughes’ introspective and wonderfully illustrated graphic novel that blends fact and fiction. Kiku imagines herself as a teenager that suddenly sees a fog that transports her to another time. Through these “displacements” Kiku learns about her grandmother Ernestina’s time in the Japanese internment camp at the Topaz War Relocation Center during WWII.
My biggest takeaway from Displacement is the connection between generational trauma and identity. As a biracial teen, Kiku struggles to connect to her Japanese heritage and knows little about her family’s history. The shame from Ernestina’s experience as a detainee is passed on from grandmother to mother to daughter. Most Issei and Nisei avoided talking about their time at the concentration camps with their children. Banned from speaking Japanese at the camps and efforts to “Americanize” Japanese Americans resulted in the loss of language and connection to Japanese culture. Realizing this connection I took a pause and thought about my family and what we’ve lost from assimilation being silent about our history. This quote from DISPLACEMENT states this beautifully,
"Our connection to the past is not lost, even if we don't have all the documents, even if we never learn the details. The memories of community experiences stay with us and continue to affect our lives. . . Memories are powerful things."
These lasting impacts of the camps reveal the power of history and memory. Just because it’s not spoken doesn’t mean it’s not felt.
Also, Displacement is timely with its parallels to today’s anti-immigration sentiments: Trump, ICE and detention centers at the US-Mexico border and the Muslim ban. Hughes urges readers to not only remember and talk about the past, but bring it to the present and act, fight for justice and not be contributors to a community’s trauma.
Plus, I loved Displacement’s soothing color palette of greens/blues and oranges/browns. I borrowed the graphic novel as an e-book from my library. On a tablet, the illustrations are crisp. I’m curious to see the book in-person to compare how the colors come off the paper pages.
Compared to Farewell to Manzanar and They Called Us Enemy, other books about Japanese incarceration aimed towards young readers, Displacement offers a more modern lens and is a fantastic addition amongst these important works. This period in U.S. history serves as a reminder of the harrowing effects of racist policies on society and through generations.
My biggest takeaway from Displacement is the connection between generational trauma and identity. As a biracial teen, Kiku struggles to connect to her Japanese heritage and knows little about her family’s history. The shame from Ernestina’s experience as a detainee is passed on from grandmother to mother to daughter. Most Issei and Nisei avoided talking about their time at the concentration camps with their children. Banned from speaking Japanese at the camps and efforts to “Americanize” Japanese Americans resulted in the loss of language and connection to Japanese culture. Realizing this connection I took a pause and thought about my family and what we’ve lost from assimilation being silent about our history. This quote from DISPLACEMENT states this beautifully,
"Our connection to the past is not lost, even if we don't have all the documents, even if we never learn the details. The memories of community experiences stay with us and continue to affect our lives. . . Memories are powerful things."
These lasting impacts of the camps reveal the power of history and memory. Just because it’s not spoken doesn’t mean it’s not felt.
Also, Displacement is timely with its parallels to today’s anti-immigration sentiments: Trump, ICE and detention centers at the US-Mexico border and the Muslim ban. Hughes urges readers to not only remember and talk about the past, but bring it to the present and act, fight for justice and not be contributors to a community’s trauma.
Plus, I loved Displacement’s soothing color palette of greens/blues and oranges/browns. I borrowed the graphic novel as an e-book from my library. On a tablet, the illustrations are crisp. I’m curious to see the book in-person to compare how the colors come off the paper pages.
Compared to Farewell to Manzanar and They Called Us Enemy, other books about Japanese incarceration aimed towards young readers, Displacement offers a more modern lens and is a fantastic addition amongst these important works. This period in U.S. history serves as a reminder of the harrowing effects of racist policies on society and through generations.