Today, as immigrant families are again separated and detained, Satsuki Ina joins me on the California Sun podcast to talk about her memoir “The Poet and the Silk Girl.” Her story chronicles her family’s journey through California’s network of assembly centers and permanent camps during World War II. It’s a reminder, she says, that what happened then is not just history — it’s a warning about how easily such chapters of fear and racism repeat themselves.

Satsuki was born behind barbed wire at Tule Lake, where she became one of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war. Her parents, both U.S. citizens, lost their freedom and faith in America, leaving a legacy of silence and trauma.

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