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Secrets of the past emerge from the boarded up Panama Hotel near Seattle's old Nihonmachi (Japantown) and Chinatown. When Henry Lee was a boy during the war, the only Chinese student at the white Ranier school, he was bullied and teased about his Asian heritage. Relief came in the presence of Keiko, a young Japanese-American girl, also there on scholarship. Their friendship is forged over kitchen duty and a shared love of jazz. Forty years have passed since Henry Lee watched his best friend and her family relocated by presidential decree to a internment camp south of Seattle and finally to a permanent camp in Idaho. The discovery of almost 40 Japanese families belongings in the old hotel bring the past alive for Henry as he looks through the dusty items from the basement of the hotel. The story is so eloquently woven between those war years and Henry's present in 1986. This is about lost love, family relationships, particularly father and son, and hope.

2023-01-20 20:09