MY NEST OF SILENCE

A Japanese American family is split between an incarceration camp and the battlefront.

It’s 1944, and Mak, Mari’s 18-year-old brother, has gone away to fight in World War II. Mari has vowed not to speak again until he comes back, no matter how strange her father or anyone else at Manzanar finds it. Mari spends her time drawing and waiting for letters from her brother, who experiences first basic training and then combat. Mak is forced to face the fact that the same government that locked his family up for being Japanese is happy enough to send him to the front—and racism from White fellow Americans continues overseas, of course. As Mak tries to protect his family from the uglier side of war, Mari contends with her quarreling parents, dismal life at camp, and her own volatile moods. Told through prose and black-and-white comic panels, Mari’s and Mak’s stories come to life. Mari’s sections are sometimes hampered by a disjointed narrative style that leaves her age and perception of events unclear and that is a mismatch for the relatively more brutal sections detailing Mak’s wartime experiences. Even so, the stark inequities that Japanese Americans faced as well as the quieter struggle of parents and children trying to understand each other and grow together both shine through.

A Japanese American incarceration narrative told through an original and effective blend of prose and illustration.