My Nest of Silence by Matt Faulkner

Mari Asai, her older brother Makoto and their parents, Ichiro and Aki are living in the Manzanar prison camp in California. They were sent to the camp after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Like most other Japanese-Americans, the Asai were forced to sell their farm in Florino, California.

It's April, 1944 and with Mak turning eighteen, he's decided, against his father's wishes, to enlist in the U.S. army. After Mak leaves on a greyhound bus, Mari decides she won't talk anymore. She's angry at Mak for making this decision without talking to her and she's angry at her father for seeming not to care. But being silent hasn't been easy. Mari is hoping that being silent will bring Mak safely home, but her father feels Mari's silence is "abnormal" while Mama understands that Mari is "upset over Mak leaving." The adults at the camp see Mari's silence as insulting.

Finally after two weeks, a letter from Mak arrives. He tells her that the bus ride from Manzanar to Camp Shelby in Mississippi was long. Although he tells Mari that their drill sergeants are "not a bad bunch of fellows" they are yelled at, have their heads shaved and are sent on a five mile "hike" before bed. Mari suspects that Mak is not telling her the whole story.

Life at Manzanar consists of lots of dust and bad food, although it's not as bad as when they first arrived. Eventually, the Issei and Nisei took over cooking at the camp. But the dust and windstorms are still a problem. One of the oldest people in the camp is Oba-chan Yuki who Mari likes and who is a great storyteller. Oba-chan Yuki has a terrible cough which the constant dust makes worse. One morning after telling Mari and her mother a story, Oba-chan Yuki asks to see Mari's sketchbook. She tells them her daughter Eunice is a water colour painter who has created artwork for Reader's Digest magazine and she offers to have Mari meet Eunice.

Another letter from Mak in July, 1944 tells about the schedule at Camp Shelby and meeting boys who are from Hawai'i. He asks Mari to have Father write to him. A third letter mentions his friend Kazuo (Kaz) who is from Hawai'i and how the Hawaiian Buddhaheads and the Mainland Kotonks are at odds with one another.  But when Kaz learns that Mak's family is in a prison camp, he is proud that Mak enlisted. A fourth letter from Mak reveals that he's put in to be an army mechanic while his friend Whitey Kurasaki has been made a unit leader. 

Back in Manzanar, Mari meets Eunice who praises her artwork and invites Mari to join her art class at the camp. But during her first art class, Mari cuts her finger with a razor blade while sharpening her pencil and her father refuses to allow her to return to the class. After Oba-chan Yuki dies in her sleep, Mari falls ill with pneumonia. As she begins to recover, Mari learns that Eunice and her family have left the camp after obtaining a waiver to move to Chicago, and that baby Keiko and the other orphans have been adopted out. 

As the war drags on, Mari struggles to recover from pneumonia and she becomes emotionally distraught. Mari is worried and sad. After becoming delusional in the old camouflage factory, Mari is hospitalized with a serious fever.  As the U.S. government no longer sees the Japanese as a serious threat and more people leave Manzanar, Mari's parents  argue about where to move after the war, with Father wanting to return to their hometown and Mama wanting to move East where they will be accepted. 

Meanwhile, Mak is determined to help out the war effort in a more meaningful way then driving a jeep. He begs to be sent to the front so he can help his friends Kaz and Whitey but is refused. When the lieutenant he drives for, abandons his orders to go to the front at Bruyeres, Mak and Harry decide to push on and find themselves in a deadly situation that sees them going missing and almost costs them their lives. 

At home, Mari and her parents learn only bits and pieces of what is going on overseas, further adding to Mari's stress. With a second telegram, Mari is certain Mak is dead, leading to a serious crisis. Once Mak's situation is clarified, the Asai family make a decision for their future, Mari begins to hope that life will be better.

Discussion

My Nest of Silence is a novel that combines two stories, one written in narrative prose, the other in graphic novel format. The two stories serve to contrast one another: Mari and her parents struggling to cope amid the injustice and racism of the Japanese internment, while their brother/son willingly sacrifices for the country that has treated them so badly.

The narrative story focuses on a Japanese-American family, the Asai's, sent to Manzanar prison camp and is told from the point of view of their ten-year-old daughter, Mari who decides to take a vow of silence both to punish her father and to protect her beloved brother Mak who has enlisted in the U.S. Army.  Mari's narrative exposes the reality of  life in Manzanar, showing the suffering Japanese American families endured but also highlighting their determination and resiliency in the face of racism and injustice. Mari's family who were farmers in Florin, California have lost their home and all their possessions. They live in dusty, cold barracks, surrounded by barbed wire. Even orphans and the elderly are incarcerated.

Mari struggles to cope with her older brother Mak enlisting and what seems like a lack of understanding by her father. The camp conditions, stress and worry about her brother and their future, lead her to become seriously ill. But Mari's real crisis comes when she believes a second telegram is about Mak having died and she climbs into the rafters of the old camouflage factory. She is almost seriously injured but saved by her father. 

Interspersed with Mari's narrative is Mak's story told through the use of graphic art. Mari receives  letters sent home to her by her brother Makato. These are dated and have some short text. However, the content of the letters is contradicted by what is shown in the graphic novel panels. Mak reveals the strenuous training, awful food, and the struggle to get along with the "Hawaiian Buddhaheads" who dislike the Japanese-American (Kotonk) soldiers as well as their white (haole) superiors, and the racism they encounter from other soldiers. In his letters, Mak doesn't reveal to his sister or family the dangers he and his fellow Japanese-American soldiers encounter, nor the real extent of his wounds later on. Instead, knowing the difficulties his family must deal with at Manzanar, he is positive, encouraging and humorous.

But it is the graphic novel pages that really are the novel's outstanding strength. Faulker successfully captures the sacrifice, bravery and fortitude of these young Japanese-American men, who, in spite of being imprisoned along with their families, chose to fight for their country. They put aside the injustice, the hatred and indignity shown them, and enlisted, perhaps believing in a better America in the future. Set against this sacrifice, is the suffering of their families imprisoned back home.  It is a debt as Faulkner writes in his blog, that must be remembered: 

"I believe it's essential that our country regularly express regret for what we did. That expression won’t fix the vastness of what was done to that community. But it might help. Let’s learn the history of the internment and share it with others. Let’s never forget what we did as a nation to Japanese Americans, so that we can help them heal and so that we may never do it again. Not ever again."

It is novels like My Nest of Silence that will help Americans remember, and move forward the process of healing and forgiveness that is so necessary. 

Book Details:

My Nest of Silence by Matt Faulkner
New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers    2022

373 pp.