A Place for What We Lose: A Daughter’s Return to Tule Lake

In this gut-wrenching work of intergenerational dialogue, Nimura (We Hereby Refuse) braids passages from her late father’s unpublished memoir of growing up in California’s Tule Lake Japanese-American concentration camp during WWII with her own reflections on the text. When Nimura’s father, Taku, was 10 years old and packing for camp in 1942, his family was instructed to burn all of their photos and anything they owned with Japanese writing on it. In his memoir, Taku describes Tule Lake as an unsanitary, demoralizing place whose resourceful residents made crafts and mochi and staged talent shows. His narrative comprises simple, factual descriptions that Nimura notes are short on emotion, in contrast to the expressive man she remembers. Meanwhile, in chapters spanning from 2010 to 2022, Nimura offers her own memories of Taku, who died in 1984 when she was 10; details revisiting his manuscript as an adult; and recounts her pilgrimage from Tacoma, Wash., to Tule Lake. The back-and-forth structure works beautifully, with added poignancy coming from her acknowledgment that “the United States government has begun new waves of mass detention and mass incarceration” under President Donald Trump. It’s a memorable duet. (Apr.)