Where we gonna go? ThatÆs none of our business. We got orders to get you out of here. In half an hour we set fire to campàWe got orders to get you out of here. Now get!ö (Maasik et al. 1999, 71).
Immigration continues to be an issue that challenges access and achievement of the California Dream of opportunity and success. Even immigrants, according to Yeh Ling-Ling, a first-generation immigrant, ôsay they support a reduction in immigration, legal as well as illegalö (Maasik et al. 1999, 75). However, immigrants have often been welcome in California when the American economy was robust and cheap sources of labor were needed for agriculture and other industries. Such duality appears typical of the Golden State, with many immigrants experiencing a life far short of the promise of the American Dream. Despite their contribution to the economy and industry in California, Ling-Ling argues immigrants cost the state and federal governments more than they contribute, ôHuddle also estimates that in 1992 alone, immigrants used services costing $42.5 billion in excess of taxes they paidö (Maasik et al. 1999, 74).
During the 1940s, Japanese Americans, both native born and immigrant, were forced into detention camps for the length of World War II. Far from representing the freedom promised by the California Dream, the detention camps were more like a prison. However, aspects of the detention camp mirrored aspects of society at large, particularly the cultural divisions within the subculture detained at the camps. As Embrey writes of her experiences in the camps, ôI can see where the Bainbridge Islanders would have had a lot of problems with the San Pedro people because of the difference in cultural outlookö (Maasik et al. 1999, 95). Such difference
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