Separate Is Never Equal Summary

The books that we discussed this week were two historical fiction books, Separate is Never Equal and Sylvia & Aki, and one history book, the Journey: Japanese Americans, Racism & Renewal. I love how the three books give me more than just the pleasure of reading. I also love the fact they have given me better understanding and more knowledge of the lives and the struggles of Mexican Americans and Japanese Americans in the past , in the ways that historical fiction books and a factual historical book do.

Featured with my struggle in identifying the borders between the fictionalized and the factual parts of the stories of the two books, I was lucky enough to have Dr. Enciso close with our group to clarify / share a historical background
One of us suggested that to her, a historical fiction should involve historical account that has been researched and that is close to non (historical) fiction. The characters may be fictions or some of the events, maybe fictionalized but the major event should be well researched and factual. Ethically, however, we seemed to agree that authors should uphold some ethical issues when fictionalizing some events surrounding the major factual event. We looked into the fact and the fiction elements of “Holocaust narrative “ as an example. One of us said that many people have rejected the narrative that have been told by so many survivors for some various reasons. In relations to the “fiction around factual event” issue, I brought up a case of an Indonesian historical fiction book that sparked criticisms for, according to some people, bringing false factual reports on certain conditions. I agree to one of us who said that a good historical fiction should have a well researched factual event before fictionalizing some elements of