Sylvia And Aki

Gonzalo is Sylvia’s father and a naturalized US citizen from Mexico (see Context). He is passionate about his dreams and seeking justice. He is a determined, hardworking man—represented by his callused hands—and conscientious—signified by how scrupulously he cleans them. A man from a farming family, he dreams of running his own farm but also values education: He wants his child to rise above and become more socially mobile than he is allowed to be.

His hopes for his children and his opposition to injustice drive his determination to integrate. Even if his original motivation was only his children, by the end of the novel, Gonzalo fights for his entire Latinx community despite attempted bribery by the white superintendent of Westminster School and sometimes ambivalent comrades. Despite never being thanked and fading into relative obscurity, Gonzalo fights for the greater good; his tenacity for justice not only helps him win but also inspires even greater justice for American society as a whole: Brown v. Board of Education. Although Gonzalo passed away early, his legacy is timeless, and Sylvia considers him brave and admirable.

A third-grader when Pearl Harbor was attacked, Aki quickly learns how privileges and supposedly natural rights can disappear. While Sylvia learns of racism and discrimination gradually, Aki is forced to face it head-on as her family destroys belongings and heirlooms that are “too Japanese” (25), and she loses her home, her quotidian life, and her family because of her ethnicity. This leads her to question her rights as a US citizen and to become more anxious and committed to her family bonds, especially when she eventually becomes separated from each of her immediate family members: her father (racism), her mother (illness), and her brother (work). Her experience at Poston and the consequences of the atomic bomb lead her to question both the price of peace and of freedom.

At the same time, Aki is very fixated on the concept of home, both literally and figuratively. She is often homesick, wanting nothing more than to return to her normal life in Westminster (she and her family are, in fact, one of the few lucky ones who are able to do so after World War II ends). Even Sylvia picks up on this, both when she meets Aki at Poston and when she discovers Aki’s belongings—significantly, one of the first games they play together is “house”; Aki also doesn’t want to call her Poston barrack “home,” even when she lives there for years. Aki also fixates on “home” as a figurative concept, in this case, the people who make a place feel like home—her family. Aki is upset and anxious with each separation from family: crying in the hospital, fearing her father won’t recognize her, saving letters and candy wrappers from Seiko. By the end of the novel, Sylvia has joined this list of “home” people—though their connection began with a shared bedroom, it culminates with exchanging dolls, cementing their “sisterhood.”