We Are Not Free

by Traci Chee

  Example A.

  Knowing that the applicant, being from an alien family, is likely one of the working class and therefore lacking adequate savings for either tuition or room and board, DO make it agonizingly clear that out-of-state tuition is due in full before the beginning of the first semester but that searching for lodging or employment will not be permitted until after the applicant has arrived. Money is the key to many doors, fellow white person, and one’s inferiors must always be reminded that without it, all of those doors are closed.

  If this had been before the evacuation, Dad would’ve yelled at me. “Not good enough, Stan,” or “You spent money on a stamp for this, Stan?” He would’ve yelled at the university, the heavens, the Director of Admissions, the guys at the post office. I don’t know a lot of Issei who yell, but Dad used to love it. I think it was one of the most American things about him, how he seized upon the freedom to be loud, to be heard, to claim his own space, even if his space encroached on everyone else in earshot.

  I mean, if throwing your freedom around like that isn’t quintessentially American, I don’t know what is.

  Now he just sits at the table, staring at his paper, and I quietly pile the letters with the questionnaire and shove them under my mattress.

  * * *

  When Twitchy announces that he’s volunteered for the army, like Frankie and Mas, everybody congratulates him, because Twitchy’s the kind of guy who can make enlisting seem like the war’s already won. With a laugh, Bette turns up Mas’s Silvertone radio, proclaiming, “This calls for a party!”

  They all leap up, except for Tommy and me, who sit off to the side.

  “Mom and Dad are going to say ‘No’ to the questionnaire.” Tommy’s voice is nearly drowned out by the music. “They’re tired of the way America’s treated them.”

  I shrug. “Aren’t we all?”

  In the middle of the barrack, our friends are dancing, singing along to the radio, and I probably know the song, but I don’t hear the words. All I hear is “Yes” and “Yes” and “Yes” and “Yes.”

  “I’m going to say ‘No’ too,” Tommy says.

  I put my arm around him.

  Tommy’s been chasing after his parents’ approval for as long as we’ve known him. Maybe if he proves he’s a “No-No” too, he’ll finally get it.

  But I doubt it.

  * * *

  Another pre-rejection, another white-gloved, backhanded slap in the face.

  Part II: Requirements

  (continued)

  Example B.

  Ambiguity over specificity. DO limit the academic courses that the applicant has access to, but DO NOT provide details that he or she may contest. DO instruct the applicant that his or her activities will be under surveillance and jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which, at its discretion, may remove him or her from your institution. DO cite “national security concerns” to allay any of the applicant’s objections. It’s a matter of national security! One wants one’s country to be safe, doesn’t one? If the applicant is a “good” nonwhite person, he or she will be happy to comply with your demands.

  * * *

  With only a week left to decide whether I’m a “Yes-Yes” or a “No-No,” I stop by the mess hall one day while Mom’s peeling ginger for the pot of teriyaki sauce she’s preparing. Except for a few of the staff who are washing rice or sweeping the kitchen at one end of the large wood-beamed room, the place is empty, benches stacked upside down on the tables. Picking up a nearby towel, I start wiping down the serving counter, like I would’ve done at Katsumoto Co. My hands come away smelling of mildew.

  Nothing says “clean” like nasty old towel, I guess.

  Mom shrugs when I ask her how she’s going to answer the questionnaire. “I don’t know . . .” Lifting her cutting board, she flicks slices of ginger into the saucepot. “I’ve been in this country since I was a little girl, you know. I don’t see why I shouldn’t make my loyalty official.”

  “What about Japan?”

  “What about it? I’ve never met the emperor.” Serenely, she pours a few glugs of shoyu into the pot.

  “Oh yeah, and Roosevelt’s your best buddy, right?”

  She laughs and adds a sprinkle of government-rationed sugar. “You never know,” she says good-naturedly. “Did you hear the First Lady might be visiting the camps soon? What if he goes with her? What if he eats some of my saba shioyaki? How embarrassing if I was a No-No.”

  I grin at her. “So you want to say ‘Yes’ just in case the president comes to eat at your mess hall?”

  “Don’t you listen, Stanley? I told you, I’m not sure.” Glancing over her shoulder, she sneaks a bottle of sake from under her apron and pours some into the pot.

  I laugh. “But Mom! FDR!”

  She sighs, capping the bottle. “Have you talked to your father yet?”

  Part III: Closings

  End your letter with a heartfelt sentiment such as “Very truly yours.” DO be genteel. How could anyone be angry with you when you were so polite?

  Only one more college left to hear from now. I can already feel the boot kicking me out on my ass.

  * * *

  There were a lot of incidents at Katsumoto Co., particularly in the 1930s when Japan started annexing parts of China and Russia. It was the solemn duty of all true Americans to fight the Yellow Peril wherever they found it, and there was always a new threat to scrub from the door, glass to sweep from the sidewalk, a cracked window to tape or board over with plywood.

  But I was only there once when it happened.

  I was thirteen, and it was winter, so the dark came early, and when the lights were on inside, we couldn’t see out the windows to the street. I used to like that, just Dad and me in our little world of aisles, shelves, bags of rice, boxes of tea. I liked the feeling of the store shutting down, the calm that followed the after-work rush.

  We closed out the register. We turned out the lights. We were at the door, all ready to go, both of us thinking of the chicken karaage Mom had promised us for dinner, when someone slammed into the glass with the flat of their hand—crack!

  “Goddamn Nips!”

  Pale faces swam into view outside the windows.

  “This is a white man’s neighborhood!”

  Dad grabbed my shoulder. I swear he was going to rip off my arm or something. “Stan,” he said. I’d never heard my dad’s voice like that—high and tight and shallow—like it wasn’t his voice at all, like he was some high-voiced, arm-ripping stranger. “Go to the back room.”

  “This is a white man’s country!”

  They were laughing at us. I could hear them as we slunk toward the storeroom, where they couldn’t see us, where they couldn’t say those things to our faces and laugh.

  Crack! Someone struck the window, not with a hand this time, but with a brick.

  What a dunce. Even I, at thirteen, knew that blunt force wasn’t a good way to shatter a window.

  You need something sharp. Like an ice pick.

  Picking up the crowbar he used to pry open shipping crates, Dad shoved me behind him and crouched by the door of the back room, ready to swing.

  Peering past him, I watched the letters appear on the windows in white paint, backward but unmistakable:

  JAPS GO HOME

  After they left, Dad telephoned the police. He filed a statement. He did some yelling. We scrubbed the paint and replaced the windows and went on as if nothing had happened, at least on the outside.

  * * *

  The day before I have to report for registration, the sixth and last university sends me a response. I’m sitting on the edge of my cot as I open it, the paper crackling like fire in the thick silence of the barrack.

  By the stove, Dad doesn’t look up.

  This is it, I think. This is the last one. The last rejection. I’m not going to college after all. At least after this, I’ll know. Good fucking riddance.

  Except it’s not a rejection. It’s an applicat
ion.

  No hoops. No flames. No bigotry with a smile. I have to read it twice to be sure.

  It’s just the form.

  I exhale slowly. What a thing. What a beautiful thing, getting the chance to be rejected like anybody else.

  What a shitty thing that I’d almost forgotten what it felt like.

  Carefully, I tuck the application back into the envelope, hardly daring to touch it in case it disintegrates.

  “Dad,” I say, “they sent me an application.”

  At first, I don’t think he’s heard me. He doesn’t turn. He doesn’t move. Wax Dad. Evacuation Dad. Maybe some things there’s just no coming back from.

  But then he folds his newspaper and lays it on the table by his elbow. His chair scrapes along the Masonite floor.

  Dad’s up. Dad’s walking toward me. “One out of six,” he says. His voice is softer than I remember. “Sixteen percent.”

  “I know, I know.” I smirk. “If this were a test, I’d have failed.”

  He takes me by the shoulders, and his eyes are serious and wounded and alive. “I don’t think this was a test for you.”

  * * *

  That evening, Dad invites me on a walk. People are always stretching their legs or searching for arrowheads after dinner, and we join them in the firebreak that runs along the edge of camp, between the barracks and the fences.

  For a while, Dad putters along. He must be trying to hide how out of shape he is or something, because even after the evacuation, he always moved with precision and purpose: making the coffee, packing his pipe, turning the page of his newspaper. He’s not the kind of man who dawdles.

  But when we pass a couple of Issei grandmas shuffling through the dust, he says loudly, “My son Stan was invited to apply to a university.”

  And I realize he’s not puttering. He just wants to brag.

  “Dad!” I say.

  “Stan is going to college,” he says to the grandmas. He’s not quite yelling, but close enough.

  I roll my eyes and leave him behind to bask in their congratulations, but I can’t help putting my hand to my chest pocket to make sure the application is still there.

  I guess I could’ve left it in the barrack, but a dozen things could’ve happened to it there. What if Mary accidentally threw it the trash? What if someone in the barrack left their hot plate on and started a fire? What if someone left the door open and the wind just kind of swept it away?

  No, I want my hope right here, where I can hold it.

  Every few minutes, Dad stops to tell someone else, and soon I’m twenty yards ahead of him. The sun’s almost gone now, but there’s still that last sliver of red on the horizon, steeping the camp in a fiery glow.

  Nearby, Mr. Uyeda, one of the bachelors from Block 8, is tossing a stick for his dog. Every time he throws the stick, the little mutt runs after it, yelping, and doesn’t stop until she’s got the stick in her mouth. Then she brings it back, drops it at Mr. Uyeda’s feet, and starts barking again. It’s a wonder he can think with all that racket, but I guess he’s old and hard of hearing, so maybe it doesn’t bother him.

  I don’t know where these pets keep coming from, because we weren’t allowed to bring any from home, but—

  Crack!

  I jump.

  For some reason, I think of a white hand—Japs go home.

  By the fence, Mr. Uyeda collapses.

  A gunshot, I think. It was a gunshot. Someone shot him. There he is, groaning, wriggling in the dust.

  He might be dying.

  There might be shouting. Someone might be screaming.

  It might be me.

  I dash forward. Someone’s got to help him. Someone’s got to do something. I can’t leave him there. I can’t let him die.

  I haven’t gone two steps when I’m tackled. My glasses are knocked from my face. The world blurs.

  I try to fight, but someone wrestles me to the dirt. My arm is being grabbed. It’s going to be ripped right out of its socket.

  Dad. It’s Dad. He was twenty yards behind me. How did he move so fast?

  Against my ear, his voice is high and taut. “Don’t, Stan. Don’t. No, no.”

  I’m still scrabbling at the dust, trying to get to Mr. Uyeda. Kids break out of the camp all the time. All the time. To catch snakes and pull the legs off scorpions. They don’t do any harm. Mr. Uyeda couldn’t do any harm. He was too old. He was hard of hearing. Did someone tell him to stop? Before they shot him? Did they warn him before they killed him?

  He’s still squirming on the ground, but his movements are getting smaller and smaller. It’s so dark out here now. I can’t see. Where’s his dog? Did they shoot his fucking dog?

  * * *

  They hold us for interrogation in one of the administrative offices. What did we see? Was Mr. Uyeda trying to escape? What was he doing by the fence?

  Nothing, we tell them. Nothing.

  For hours, they question us. What do we know? Was Mr. Uyeda part of a conspiracy against the United States? What was he trying to do, so close to the barbed wire?

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  He was a Yes-Yes. He was one of the first to answer the loyalty questionnaire. He was playing with his dog.

  For maybe the hundredth time, I take out the envelope with my college application inside it and begin turning it over and over in my hands. The corners are bent now. The crisp white paper, smudged with fingerprints. I’m going to tear the thing to pieces if I keep messing with it, but I can’t stop.

  “What’s going to happen to the killer?” I say suddenly.

  Dad squeezes my hand, as if in warning. His knuckles are dirty and cut up from wrestling me to the ground. He saved me, I think. I would’ve run over to Mr. Uyeda. I would’ve been shot too. I would’ve been dead or in a hospital, and they’d be asking Dad if it was me who was trying to escape.

  Never mind the fact that I wouldn’t have needed to. Never mind the college application. Never mind the resettlement. Never mind the one hundred thousand people who haven’t been found guilty of a single traitorous thing. Never mind that as of tomorrow, I could’ve been a Yes-Yes too.

  One of our interrogators blinks. “Killer?” He looks dumbfounded.

  “Yeah, killer,” I say. “That’s what you call someone who kills people.”

  The man says nothing.

  For a second, I think I’m going to puke.

  “Can you at least tell me what happened to his dog?” I say.

  “Stan . . .” Dad’s eyes are bloodshot and swollen from lack of sleep.

  But how can we sleep? How can we go back now, or go on? “Yes” and “Yes”? A dewy-eyed freshman just like the rest? Whistling on my way to some ivy-laden lecture hall, far from the fences, while Dad brags up and down the firebreak where Mr. Uyeda was shot for playing fetch with his dog? How can we do it? How can we do anything, after this?

  They tell me no one’s seen the dog.

  EDITORIAL

  WORDS FROM AN OLD ISSEI

  In this time of turmoil, there are those among us who wish to retaliate against the W.R.A. for the death of Mr. Uyeda. These disgruntled fools will pretend to stage an insurrection, but when they are faced with the consequences of their agitations, they will reveal their duplicitous nature, groveling and begging for mercy.

  These are the same people who cry for their pitiful condition, who bemoan the loss of their homes and household goods, and call first for the restitution of their civil rights before they declare themselves loyal to this, their homeland.

  But I say it is they who have made themselves pitiful with their spineless demands! These are not the virtues of the Japanese people. Let us silence the words of those who seek the pity of others, for they should be ashamed to share their weakness openly.

  For there are those who, at this time for patriotism, publicly pledge their allegiance to America, though they have borne the same afflictions. There are those who, even now, are bravely standing on the battlefield, ready to fight for
their nation. Put aside your personal feelings. Commit yourself to serving your country. These are the long-cherished tenets of the Japanese people. Moreover, they are the privilege of those who live in these great United States.

  Exile those who would shirk and run away! These scoundrels who claim there is no future or security in the U.S. do not deserve the blessings of this nation. Cast aside these troublemakers! We must live life in the essence of the Japanese spirit, burning with love and obligation to America, our homeland.

  Awaken, descendants of Japan! You, within whom the Japanese spirit burns! Come together and demonstrate the beauty of our people to the world, rejecting the humiliation of these shameful disloyals and malcontents!

  That is all I have to say.

  VII

  TEAM PLAYER

  AIKO, 14

  MARCH–SEPTEMBER 1943

  The day after the shooting, they don’t just cancel school, they cancel everything. No work, no co-op, no nothing! All the normal camp stuff screeches to a halt, and what’s left is this sudden turn, like everything has gone sideways.

  Peeking through the curtains, I watch people running through the streets with shovels and pieces of lumber. It’s like they grabbed whatever they could get their hands on and thought, This’ll do some damage.

  “Aiko!” my mom cries. “Get away from there!”

  I ignore her. I do that a lot. It’s my older brother, Tommy, who’s the obedient one, even if our parents never give him credit for it, just like it’s Tommy who draws me away from the window.

  At the back of the barrack, our mom grabs my wrist and yanks me down to the floor where she’s sitting with my younger sisters, Fumi and Frannie. She doesn’t thank Tommy for bringing me over, of course, but no one expects her to. She and our dad demand a lot from Tommy because he’s the oldest and a boy, but no matter what he does, it never pleases them.