Prologue

Fort Richardson, Alaska; December 1941

“Private, take a letter.”
    Lt. Colonel Lionel Armstrong stepped out of his office. He had dismissed his operations sergeant abruptly after taking “an urgent telephone call” and approached the young private who masqueraded as his clerk-typist.
    "To: Brigadier General Buckner

    Alaska Defense Command
    From: Lt. Col. L. Armstrong

    32nd Engineer Company
    I received instructions today to prepare a containment area with top-level security. I have concerns about the scope of these orders given the time frame.
   The logical solution would be to secure a portion of the armory. This would accommodate approximately 15 individuals.
    Additional facilities, however, could be developed adjacent to the armory with additional funding."
   The colonel stopped for a moment to consider his next words as his clerk stopped typing.
    “Private Larson, read back what you have typed so far.”
    “Yes, sir. ‘To: Brigadier General Buckner, Alaska Defense Command … ‘,”
    He stopped.
    “That’s it?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Good grief. I thought you were from clerical.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You can’t type?”
    “Not really, sir.”
    “What did you do before this?”
    “I pumped gas, sir.”
    He stepped back into his office and picked up the telephone. “Get me a goddamn typist!”

“That’s it! I’ve had enough!” and Imara Frost tossed her stack of books on the cafeteria table in disgust. She had a break between classes late in the morning which usually found her in the cafeteria buried in homework.
   “OK, Ima. What is it now?” asked her friend, Brenda.
    “Statistics. Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!”
    “Imara!”
    “What?”
    “Don’t say that!”
    She sat down and breathed a long sigh.
    “Between the not-so-subtle comments about ‘working girls’ from Professor Hard On … ,”
    “Professor Hardy.”
    “Whatever. Add this impossible to understand text book, and the fact I am now flat out of money … this is probably going to be my last quarter.”
    “No, Ima! You can’t leave me alone here. Without you I’d have never passed algebra. You have to stay.”
    Imara just shook her head.
    “I knew this was going to be hard. But the money part … I just don’t see how I can continue. Ever since Papa died … ,” and she trailed off. Talking about the passing of her father always made Imara choke up.
    “You could get a job.”
    “A job? On top of classes? And tutoring you?”
    “For a little while. Save some money, then come back. Lot’s of people do it.”
    “Who is going to hire me? What do I know?”
    “You know how to type.”
   
“Miss … Frost,” and Captain Thorne looked at the application form with more blank spaces than completed ones. Fort Richardson base operations had never hired a civilian from town before. The form did not fit well.
   “Imara Frost, yes, sir.”
   “What kind of name is ‘Imara’?”
    “A family name … sir.”
    He made a few notes.
    “This says you can type,” and he looked up, a slight sneer on his face. “Is that all you do?”
    She felt his stare … it was not at her eyes.
    “I am experienced in all aspects of an office, Mr. Thorne … ,” she vamped just a little, and hesitated as the captain gave her a stern look.
    “It’s Captain Thorne.”
    She smiled.
        This is going nowhere fast.
    “This says you are a student at the University of Anchorage.”
    “University of Alaska - Anchorage, sir.”
    “A business major?” and he looked up.
    “They let girls do that?”
    Her smile disappeared.
    “Yes, sir, they do.”
    This time his eyes focused on her face … what was there about her face? The eyes? Different. Not much, subtle. But different. He made a few notes.
    “You are originally from Ketchikan. You do not list your father.”
    “He has passed, Captain.”
    He just gave her “a look” and marked “Deceased” on the form.
    “Your mother’s name?”
    “Frost. Carrie Frost.”
    “And what does she do? To support herself.”
    “She works in a grocery.”
    “A grocery? That’s what the Japs do. Is your mother Japanese?”
    A voice came thundering from the office next door.
    “Captain Thorne! Where are you on getting me a typist?”
    The captain rose, defensively, and stepped toward the open door.
    “I have interviewed several civilian candidates, Colonel. Nothing promising yet.”
     “I’m a typist.”
    The voice came from behind the captain.
    “Who said that?” demanded Col. Armstrong.
    “I did … sir,” and Imara pushed past the captain into the colonel’s office. The colonel just looked at her.
    “A girl?”
    She stood her ground.
    “A typist, sir.”
    An awkward pause filled the office … ,
    “Can you type from dictation?”
    “Of course.”
    He sat back with a cigarette and considered his options.
    “Colonel, I was about to dismiss Miss … ,”
    “Frost. Imara Frost,” she interrupted.
    “Miss Frost. If you will follow me.”
    “Hold one, Captain. Frost, take a seat there,” and he pointed to a small table where an old Olivetti typewriter sat. “Give us the room, Captain.”
    Imara sat with a stack of paper on one side, waiting.
    “Type a letter.”
    “Yes, sir.” She scrolled a sheet into the typewriter.
    “To: Brigadier General Buckner … ,”
    She began to type … one careful letter at a time.
    “Is that the best you can do, Frost?” the colonel demanded.
    She stiffened, then turned to face the colonel.
    “I’m cleaning the keys, sir. They have not been cleaned for some time, and it shows. One always cleans the keys … every day … that is if you want decent letters.”
    She turned back and continued as the colonel sat back. He was not accustomed to anyone in his command talking back to him.
    “All right,” she stated. “I am ready.”

“And in conclusion, I respectfully insist on an increase in the budget for the afore-mentioned [sic] materials immediately. Respectfully, Col. L. Armstrong. Copy Alaska Defense Command Budget Office.”
    He heard only four key strokes before Imara pulled the paper from the platen and handed it to him.
    “OK, let’s see. Neat … you misspelled ‘afore-mentioned’. It should have a dash.”
    “No sir, it is a single word, not a hyphenated one.”
    She pulled a small dictionary from her purse, flipped a few pages, then presented it to the colonel.
    “Aforementioned, sir.”
    He shook his head.
    “Hmm.”
    He took a puff from his cigarette.
    “Captain!“ he called out.
    Captain Thorne appeared in the doorway.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Find the girl a desk. And you … Frost … I am not used to anyone in this office talking back to me,” and he tapped his cigarette ashes onto a pewter plate on the corner of his desk. “This is a military base, not some goddamn college dorm.”

Ketchikan, Alaska; Present Day
"Immigration enforcement operations in Alaska took a dramatic turn yesterday as Coast Guard units operating out of Ketchikan sealed off the harbor while FBI and ICE agents raided the Gravina Island Cannery. Officials for the government refused to comment on the raid, but workers at the cannery stated police arrested 18 workers and led them away in handcuffs. The extent of Alaska immigration raids remains unclear, but local jails routinely process detainees before transferring them to the Tacoma, Washington, detention center. A spokesperson for the cannery said unless replacement workers can be found within a few days, the cannery will be forced to layoff over 40 cannery workers and shut down until skilled workers can be located.
    "This is Cassidy Peters for KTVA news. I’ll see you on the radio."
    Talia Vaughn reached for the TV remote and shut off the evening news. When she worked on her college homework she liked to keep the TV on - the background noise helped her think. And this paper - “Progressive Disintegration in US Society - Effects and Consequences” - it had her bogged down.
    The rain had stopped, at least for a while, so she popped the top off a beer and headed out onto her deck. Below her Tongass Highway was quiet - this was the time of day she liked the best. Daylight hung on past 11:00 and the rapidly flowing tides of the Tongass Narrows East Channel conducted their familiar dance - they helped calm her anxiety, helped her think.
    “No one will bother with Alaska. The FBI? Are you kidding?”
    She heard that kind of sentiment all too often.
    “The canneries - that’s where you find them illegals. A bunch of addicts and pot heads. Should send them all to hell if you ask me.”
    The talk in the taverns and bars could shift from support - to keep the canneries operating - to downright hostility - toward anyone who looked or dressed differently. A few braved to talk in subversive tones – about things like freedom, justice, liberty … ,
    “And justice for all. Here it comes … .”
    She turned and smiled as her sister Victoria came out onto the deck.
    “Was I talking to myself again?” Talia asked, as she took a slug of her beer. Victoria carried a margarita. No wheat-and-grain piss-water for her.
    People could scarcely believe they were sisters. Victoria had black hair and slightly almond-colored skin that took to tanning like a duck to water. Talia sported fire-engine red hair, naturally, and just a photo of the sun could spark a sun burn.
   “Loud and clear. What’s it this time?”
   Talia looked out across the narrows, then back to a carved piece of driftwood perched on the corner of her deck railing - about 2 feet high with Raven at the base - the place of power. The friendship pole had been a gift from a Tlingit native to her great-grandmother after the war, or so the family history recounted.
   The war. The phrase itself seemed dated. Not World War II, or even WWII, nor the war against the Japanese. Despite wars stretching all through the so-called Cold War period and after, to her parents and the last 3 generations it had been just “the war”.
    “I had coffee this morning at the New Yorker. Liz sat with me and asked what I could do to help.”
    “Help? With what?”
    “She said with all this talk of ICE and arrests of innocent people. It happened here, during the war. The arrests of the Japanese, like George Shimizu.”
    “Who’s he?”
    “See? That’s what I mean. He founded the café - crap, a hundred years ago. He was run out of downtown by the ‘good townsfolk’ in, oh, 1920 or so. So they moved south of the bridge and created the Stedman business district. That’s who Liz and her partner bought the restaurant from.
    “He was arrested following the attack on Pearl Harbor.”
    “Arrested? What’d he do?”
    Talia just sighed and took another sip of her beer.
    “I keep running mama’s stories through my head - what it was like when the war started. When they arrested all the Japanese and sent them away. I’m tempted to get her box out of the basement and go through it again. But at the same time it scares the hell out of me.”
    “Scares you? Why?”
    “Mama said it could never happen again. But it is.”
    “Not the Japanese?”
    “No, not the Japanese. Not this time.”
   
“There it is,” Talia said as she shoved aside some old suitcases. The box seemed heavier than last time.
    She sat back, her legs folded under her, and pulled the top off. She had not seen the contents ever since the original cardboard box had disintegrated following a leak of the old water heater in the basement. Some of the papers had been damaged, the ink smeared, the old binders ruined. Her father had painstakingly pulled everything out he could salvage, left them to dry, and replaced the damaged binders with new plastic ones. He then carefully sealed the damaged files behind plastic dividers once they had dried.
    She meant to go through them carefully, record everything on her computer, and scan what she could. But the young mother of two, a husband off at sea with the ‘guard’ for long stretches at a time - well, intentions were good.
    Patience had been written on the pages - or more precisely, typed - the words scribed in the eternal fabric of outrage, fear, shame, and subjugation.
    They lay waiting for her.
    For today.