Under The Blood Red Sun

I recently read Under the Blood Red Sun. It is a book about life in Hawaii for a Japanese family shortly before and after the Pearl Harbor Attacks. Last year, I read a book on how Japanese people living on the west coast were put into detainment camps for most of World War Two, due to the government fearing that they might rise up in revolt and help the Japanese army if they invaded the United States. I had never heard of this before, and it really startled me that such a thing took place in the United States.

Tomi, the main character lives in Hawaii with his father, grandfather, mother and sister in a small house owned by the people that his mother works for. The family that his mother works for is rich, and has a son named Keet who torments Tomi for being Japanese. Tomi's father is a fisherman and Tomi's grandfather helps around the house. 

Since the family is Japanese in a time when tensions between the United States and Japan were very high, many people are afraid of or want nothing to do with them. Since Tomi's father is frequently out at sea fishing, Tomi's grandfather acts as a father figure to him. He talks frequently about honor, and not to disgrace the family by getting into a fight, or doing something very wrong in public. 

One day, Tomi comes home from school to find that his grandfather has just washed and hung his Japanese flag out to dry. Since many people are suspicious of Japanese at the time, Tomi takes the flag down and puts it back in its place inside the house. Tomi and his father keep and train pigeons to fly and race. When Tomi's father is out to sea, Tomi takes care of them, feeds them, and lets them fly. He is also a big fan of baseball, and Tomi as well as his best friend Billy frequently practice in a field. One morning, while practicing, many planes fly over them. Both boys notice that the planes do not look to be American, and they both become worried. Minutes later, bombs start going off and machine gun fire picks up. Both boys run back to their houses, and when Tomi gets to his, he notices that his grandfather is running outside flying his Japanese flag. He figured that if the Japanese planes saw his flag, and believed that he was on their side, they wouldn't bomb. 

Eventually, Tomi gets his grandfather to put the flag away. Tomi and his mother take everything that has to do with his Japan, a portrait of the emperor of Japan, traditional clothes as well as the flag and buries it under the house. Soon the bombs stop, and everything returns to normal until the night, when an army official comes to the door, asking them if they know any thing about a possible traitor that was flying a Japanese flag during the attack. Eventually the official leaves. In the morning however, two new army officials come to the house and have Tomi and his grandfather slaughter all of the pigeons, fearing that they are sending letters to the Japanese disclosing important information.

As the days go by, Tomi's father does not return from his fishing trip. The family begins to worry, since they can't contact him because he doesn't have a radio. Another thing that worries the family is that rumor has it that the army will shoot any boat that does not have an American flag displayed that tries to enter the harbor. The family knows that Tomi's father does not have a flag on board. 

Tomi eventually goes out looking for his father, and heads into town. He hears that Japanese men are being held on an island in the bay. During a storm, Tomi swims out to the island and finds his father. His father tells him that a plane started shooting the boat when he tried to enter the harbor. His crew member Sanji was killed, and he himself was shot in the leg. His father tells him to go home. Tomi did not see his father or grandfather for the next 5 years. They were both put on a boat headed for the West Coast to go to a detainment camp until the war was over. 

Reading this book introduced a new point of view on situations that seem very one sided. For one thing, when I used to think about Pearl Harbor, all I would see was capsized ships, blown up planes, and smoke. Now, I think past that and think of the affects that it had on peoples everyday life. It still half amazes me about the detainment camps, and that the idea was even thought of, but the other half of my mind does think that the detainment camps were a pretty obvious answer to a problem. If I saw people waving the flag of a country that was attacking my country, I would be pretty afraid, and I would feel safer if they were detained. 

Sometimes in this book, I felt that it was biased towards Japanese points of view. It sometimes made Americans seem like we were always in the wrong.