Kiku Hughes’ graphic novel Displacement addresses the intergenerational trauma of Japanese American incarceration through a story of time travel

A time-travel graphic novel about intergenerational Japanese American camp history is a surprise. But even for readers versed in this history, Kiku Hughes’s Displacement is a powerful innovation in camp literature and Japanese American literature overall. Displacement brings together several current conversations in camp history: intergenerational trauma, the relevance of camp history for present-day history, tracing genealogy, the tradition of resistance to incarceration, and Japanese American queer history.
As a loosely autobiographical book, the main character “Kiku” is visiting San Francisco’s Japantown on a trip from Seattle when she’s pulled back into a scene from her grandmother ...