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Please join author Shirley Miller Kamada, a local author, for a Meet the Author event to discuss her 2023 debut, No Quiet Water, at the Civic Center Auditorium, Moses Lake Museum & Art Center, in partnership with the Moses Lake Public Library.

Synopsis: After the U.S. declares war on Japan in 1941, all persons of Japanese descent in the Western U.S. come under suspicion. Curfews are imposed, bank accounts frozen, and FBI agents search homes randomly.

Despite the fact that two generations of the Miyota family are American citizens, Fumio and his parents and sister Kimiko must pack meager belongings and are transported under military escort to the California desert to be held at Camp Manzanar, leaving their good friends and neighbors the Whitlocks to care for their farm and their dog Flyer.

The Miyotas suffer unimaginable insults, witness prejudice and violent protests, are forced to live in squalor, and are provided only poor-quality, unfamiliar food which makes them ill. Later, they are transferred to Idaho’s Camp Minidoka, where Fumio learns what it means to endure and where he discovers a new world of possibility and belonging.

Lyrical, visual, and rendered with strict attention to historical accuracy, NO QUIET WATER shines a poignant light on current issues of racism and radical perspectives.