Harvest the Wind

Virginia Franconi left home at eighteen like the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels. Now in her mid-twenties she returns to the family farm in Idaho. Her sour belligerent father once an iron-fisted ruler is weak and frail no longer a threat. Marc Virginias brother runs the farm. Virginia is pregnant a secret she doesnt initially share with Marc or her father. With most young men off fighting the war in Europe or the Pacific Marc worries who will help grow the food demanded by a hungry nation. When President Roosevelt orders all people of Japanese descent removed from the West Coast Keiko Ugawa and her family find themselves in a crowded tar-papered barrack surrounded by barbed-wire and guard towers where temperatures reach 130F in summer and minus 30F in winter. Dust and wind are constants. Her mother dies and Keikos anger at authorities intensifies. Marcs worries about who will help him are solved when the government allows internees from nearby Camp Minidoka to work on surrounding farms. A saddened and still angry Keiko comes to the Franconi farm along with several young men. While Keiko works in the house with Virginia now approaching her due date the young men join Marc in the fields. Keiko helps deliver Virginias baby. The two women gradually become friends.