Food and cooking become crucial to Sunny as she sets out to learn about her late mother through the recipes and notes she left. In what ways are particular foods or dishes in the novel symbolic? Cite the text to support your argument.

Which character, in your view, changes the most throughout the course of the novel? Why? Support your perspective through references to the text.

Near the end of the novel, Rocky, Cas, and Lyndon take steps to protect the private property of the interred citizens and immigrants so that they can return to it after the war. Research into the plight of those who were interred at Manzanar (which was an actual internment camp for Japanese residents and Japanese American citizens) and similar camps: Are such trusts historically accurate? What became of these individuals upon their release from the camps?