The Sansei author describes the book as “the true story of two immigrant families who came to Southern California for better lives, only to face their own separate battles against racism in the midst of World War II. One family came by land from Mexico and the other by sea from Japan. Little did they expect their paths would meet and lead to justice and desegregation for all the schoolchildren of California in Mendez, et al. v. Westminster (1947) — seven years before Brown v. Board of Education (1954).