I Hotel: Trust

   The story of John, Wayne's uncle, hitchhiking to prison surprised me.  In another novel, "The Emperor was Devine," made it seem that the United States was extremely serious about detaining Japanese-Americans.  Allowing them to travel on their own was out of the question.  But John's story broadens my knowledge of this time period (assuming that this was based on facts).  Not only did the police allow John to hitchhike on his own to prison, his family was allowed to travel to his court case once they were put into camps and declared prisoners.  There is this odd in-between of seriousness the United States took to detaining Japanese Americans.  They forced all Japanese into camps for years yet they were lenient at times.  "John asked to do his jail time in Arizona, but they had no way to get him there from Seattle, so he volunteered to get there on his own" (403).  While government officials detained these people out of distrust they still trusted John enough to let him travel on his own after agreeing to let him go to a prison of his own choice.
   At no time was there any anger spoken against the American government for their detainment.  John resisted the curfew but never did angry get mentioned.  He actually went to the police himself.  The disagreements came when Vietnam War was mentioned (a continuos theme throughout the section).  Not only is the government in an odd in-between of trust, Japanese-Americans are in an in-between of respect for the United States even though they were facing so much discrimination.