Thirteen-year-old Emiko Arrington can’t stop looking through the window at the cloud of smoke rising from Pearl Harbor, a shimmering curtain of black and gray that only gradually drifts out to sea. She sees the planes, swarming like insects as they pour down the valley and turn into the harbor. She sees their bombs and torpedoes fall away.

Within a very short time, Emiko and her family cease to be Japanese- Americans. Somehow, without any discussion at all, they become Japanese. They become the enemy.