Evacuation Order No. 19 by Julie Otsuka

  1. What event occurred on December 7, 1942?
  2. What was Executive Order 9066? Who signed it? When was it signed?
  3. How many internment camps were there? How many Japanese were sent to the camps?
  4. How were they treated in the camps? What happened to them when they were released?
  5. Where does Mrs. Hayashi live? How many children does she have? Where is her husband?
  6. Why is it important to know the historical context of this story?
  7. What literary technique does the author use in the first paragraph?
  8. What is the setting of the story? Why is the setting significant?
  9. How does the newspaper give the reader a sense of the historical context of the story?
  10. What does the scene between Mrs. Hayashi and Joe reveal about their characters?
  11. Why didn’t she pack her son’s baseball mitt?
  12. Which two pictures does she keep? Why?
  13. Why does she lock the boxes in the sunroom with two padlocks?
  14. What had she written on the back of the receipt?
  15. “...Mrs. Hayashi, who did not always follow the rules, followed the rules.” Why?
  16. What had happened to Mr. Hayashi? Why were his letters stamped “Alien Enemy Mail Censored”?
  17. How did the scene in the store foreshadow the scene with the dog?
  18. Why did she kill the dog?
  19. Why did she wear her white silk gloves? What does she do with them? How did she treat her gloves earlier in the story?
  20. What do her actions concerning the household animals reveal about her character?
  21. Why didn’t Mrs. Hayashi pack “Birds of America”?
  22. Why doesn’t the boy take off his hat?
  23. Why would people be staring at the girl?
  24. What does Mrs. Hayashi do with the bird?
  25. How long are they away from home?
  26. What happened to the house in their absence?
  27. What is the fate of each of the characters?
  28. What does the wine bottle represent?