This is an absolutely great book about the post-Pearl Harbor time in Hawaii, and how it affected people of Japanese ancestry living in Hawaii.
This part isn't from the book, but it's necessary background. The U.S. gathered up all the persons of Japanese ancestry (PJAs) on the West Coast shortly after the start of the war and shipped them to assembly centers (with families sometimes living in horse stalls), and then on to desert areas or other similarly nasty areas to live in tarpaper shacks. Some 110,000 to 120,000 people were gathered up and shipped out. These people were not charged with anything; they were not put on trial, nor found guilty of anything.
They were just gathered up and shipped to places surrounded by barbed wire, armed soldiers, and, in one case, tanks.
The main character in this novel is Tomi Nakaji, a PJA, who was 13 in 1941. The story takes place a couple of years later. His father and grandfather had both been put in holding areas shortly after the war started.
His father was a fisherman, and his boat was strafed by U.S. planes, and his helper killed. Shortly thereafter, Tomi's father and grandfather were arrested and taken away. His grandfather had homing pigeons, and all of them were killed.
Tomi wants to bring up his grandfather's boat which was sunk by the military. This sets up a series of events which happens again and again in the book, as Tomi and his friends are attacked by a bunch of white thugs, headed by a kid named Keet.
Tomi's grandfather has a stroke and, after being in the hospital for a while, is finally allowed to go home.
Tomi and his friends start bringing up small things from the boat, but Keet and his punk gang steal things. Keet is a punk in the worst sense of the word, and a total coward at that.
Anyhow, Tomi's grandfather ends up with a girlfriend, and various things happen related to trying to bring up the boat, including a final major showdown between Keet and a whole bunch of guys who plan to attack Tomi and the few kids he has with him who have a way to bring the boat up enough to get it hauled away and fixed.
All their efforts, of course, are opposed by Keet and his group of thugs, and it all ends up in a major showdown, two groups facing off against each other, Military Police, and Fumi and her friends from her tattoo parlor.
An excellent book.
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Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page
