We first meet Ruth in an orphanage on Oahu, the half
Japanese, half Hawaiian daughter of occupants of the Moloka’I leper colony.
Over the course of 54 years, from 1926 to 1970, we follow her life as she is
adopted by a Japanese family who move to California to farm. Of course, come
Pearl Harbor, they are put in an internment camp and later have to start over
in the aftermath. Ruth is contented with her life; she loves her parents and is
starting a family of her own. Then, out of nowhere, a letter arrives from
Rachel – her birth mother. Will Ruth want to meet the woman who gave her up
when she was one year old? Can she love both her birth mother who she doesn’t
remember and her adoptive mother, the only other she’s known? Can she even
understand the woman who gave her up- and who lived a significant amount of her
life in the leper colony?
The characters are mostly well drawn and three dimensional.
The author brings places to life, too- the islands, central California, the
internment camps. I think this description of the inhumanity of putting people
in internment camps like animals comes at a time when the US is doing the same
thing all over again, and I hope it will make some difference in the minds of
readers. Five stars.
Going on my library hold list right now!
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