So Far From The Sea

So Far From The Sea

Picture book
Eve Bunting's So Far From The Sea was published in 1998, the
year after my son was born. It seriously needs to come back into
print. It is the most powerful book parents can use to introduce
young children to Executive Order 9066, the 1942 edict that mandated
all Japanese people in the United States to be locked up in
concentration camps.
A family--the 7-year-old narrator, parents, and brother--is
making a pilgrimage to Manzanar to lay silk flowers on the children's
grandfather's grave. It's probably the last time the family will go
there. They're about to move from California to Massachusetts.
Full color two page spreads showing the family alternate with
ones done in black, white, and grey that show the past. You see the
barbed wire and the sentries, children trying to learn in a room with
no desks and not even enough seats, the tiny quarters whole families
had to share... In a particularly poignant picture you see the
father, then a boy of eight, wearing his Cub Scout uniform with which
he'd tried to show the soldiers he was a true American.
If you're a parent try to locate this book at your library or
through Inter Library Loan. It will make a very tough topic every
generation needs to learn about easier to explain and discuss.
I felt that this review was the perfect one to post on the 4th
of July. Even as we've atoned for the Japanese internment and are
discovering the evils of the forcible removal of indiginous children
to boarding schools we're repeating the same evils in the treatment of
immigrants from Mexico and Central America. If America was judged on
our ability to learn from history on a rubric of one (does not meet
expectations) to four (exceeds expectations) we'd be pulling ones. In
my mind this is not a positive exceptionality.
On a personal note, as much as I enjoy the summer trinity of parade,
fireworks, and barbeque, today my heart is overwhelmed with sadness.
I feel that the America we celebrate is, if not gone, seriously in
need of life support. The interests of the majority of us are about
as represented by "our" gubmint as, well, the colonists' interests
were by the British back in the day.
A great big shout goes out to all who speak unpopular truths in this
nation of, by, and for WalMart and Wall Street.
However, Happy 4th of July to all my readers who celebrate it.
Wherever you are, may your day be special!
jules hathaway


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