HOME WAS AUBURN, A TOWN LATTICED WITH railroad tracks and berry and vegetable farms, a pocket of the White River Valley at the foot of glacial, snow-capped Mount Rainier. Japanese farmers were drawn to the valley, in part because it reminded them of the landscape of Japan, and cloud-swathed, volcanic Rainier of Japan’s most sacred peak, Mount Fuji. The immigrants called Rainier “Tacoma’s Fuji” and lovingly translated the valley’s name into Japanese. Shirakawa. The soft syllables rolled off their tongues, like a whisper with a finger to the lips, for someplace intimate and empyreal.
