Mikasa Tsuyoi is a Japanese girl in the 4th grade. And loves History!

But Mikasa wanted to learn something about her, as a Japanese American, and wanted to know more about the Japanese American experience, and what it was like before modern times.

Hmm, where are you?

So one day, Mikasa went to her local Library. She went to go look for a book about Asian American History.

She found a book that looked the part! But it was old and seemed it was unused for a long time. 

The book was very old, and the title could be barley made out. Only the words Japanese and Strength were visible. when she went to go open the book, the Book came to life and started to flip through the pages on its own, then suddenly...

Mikasa was transported through a portal to another point in time!

Whoa!

Mikasa woke in a daze. She was scared and confused.... She also noticed that she wasn't on the ground...but flying in a portal of sorts.

She could not believe her eyes as she was seeing not the present, but what seemed to be America in the mid 1940's 

When she landed, she looked around, confused as to where she was at. Alas it was not long till she realized she was somewhere far away, seemingly still in America but not a place that she was too familiar with.

As she looked on, she was able to see fencing with barbed wire and shacks in the distance. She continued to look on and was able find people, but they were in the fenced area, with run down shacks.

As she was making her way to the people to talk to them to see if they knew where they were, she suddenly got confronted by two guards and taken to the unknown fenced area.

Upon being taken to the massive complex, she was put with kids in certain section. She had two kids come up to her across the way and introduced themselves. One was a boy named Ben and a girl named Nina. Odd enough, Nina and Ben were her grandparents' name.

Hi I'm Mikasa!

I'm Ben, nice to meet you.

I'm, Nina!

Mikasa asked Nina where they were and what is going on? Nina went on to tell her that she was in a holding camp in San Francsico and were to wait out the time. Mikasa was so confused on why and how? So she asked. She was not told or informed about such things.

Ben quickly told Mikasa that it was because there was fighting going on in the world and they were kept there for "safety" reasons. Mikasa scoffed " safety for what?" Ben continued to tell Mikasa that the Japanese people were being treated unfairly in the U.S despite being good American citizens.  

As Ben was in the middle of talking to Mikasa about being strong and resilient and it being the core of Japanese people alike, Mikasa was still in disbelief that the country she was born and raised in were doing this to their own People, the American people. People that contributed to society and did nothing wrong and were proud to be American!

Mikasa almost in tears was about to just ignore Ben as if she thought he was lying or wrong. Suddenly a guard comes into the room, finds Mikasa and tells her to come with her for checking in. As she went with the guard, she did start to notice the similarities of modern American soldiers, but the uniforms and demeanor were different. She was taken to the center of the camp for registry and could not believe her eyes.

Why? I don't understand.

Mikasa saw the American flag in the middle of the camp. She was so confused and could not understand why this was happening? She thought to herself "maybe Ben was telling the truth". The guard then asked her to state her name. When she told him her name, he told her that there is one relative by last name. As surprised as she was shocked, she thought there could be no way she had a family member that was here.