The issue of racism has always been one surrounding much controversy. It is the type that hushes a crowd and touches the heart. The novel, Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson, exemplifies the dark shadow that racism casts on society. Through Kabuo's loss of land, the internment camps that Kabuo, Hatsue and their families experience, the break up of Ishmael and Hatsue, and Kabuo's murder indictment, racism still finds a way to affect a society.
             Before the years of war, Zenhichi, Kabuo's father, makes an illegal agreement with Carl Heine senior. This is a key conflict that changes everything. The agreement is based on an eight-year "lease-to-own" contract that the two men discuss and agree upon. When the war comes and the Japanese Americans are sent away to internment camps, everything changes. Nothing is quite the same as the war comes to an end. When the Miyamotos return to claim their land, they find out that the victim's mother, Etta, has cheated them. She has sold their seven acres of land to another farmer because the Miyamotos are unable to pay their last payment, due to circumstances caused by the war. This disrespectful action she takes is caused by her racist thoughts that she has toward the Japanese. This is demonstrated in her conversation with her husband: she says, "We're not such paupers as to sell to Japs, are we? For new clothes? For a pouch of fancy pipe tobacco?" (Guterson 119). Her racism has cost the land of the Miyamotos and raises tension between the two families, which in turn, creates a motive for Kabuo to murder Etta's son.
             The internment of Kabuo, Hatsue, and the rest of their families occurs because the U.S government is being racist toward the Japanese. The government does not trust the Japanese because it fears that spies are among them, although they swear to be loyal to the U.S. Some of them even stand up to fight for the U.S. against their home country to dem
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