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Act I
An aged World War II veteran, Sam Kimura, has been estranged from his family for 60 years. Sam's older sister, Kei, has died. A woman brings a mysterious envelope to him.
In 1941, Sammy is a newly elected class president who dreams of "Going Places", like college and high political office. His father, Tatsuo, and wise old grandfather, Ojii-san, own a farm in Salinas, California. Sammy adores his older sister Kei, who has postponed her own dreams to help the family. After the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in December, the US government fears that peaceful Japanese-Americans might be loyal to the Japanese. Nearly all of the Japanese-Americans in the Western US are incarcerated in internment camps. Sammy's family is forced to sell their beautiful farm for a small price and sent to the bleak Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming.
While in this camp, and against his father's wishes, Sammy joins with Mike Masaoka, head of the Japanese American Citizens League, which cooperates with the authorities to identify "disloyal" Japanese. When his grandfather, Ojii-chan, becomes sick, Sammy goes to see the white Quaker volunteer nurse at the camp, Hannah, for some cough syrup. She tells him it is only for the staff, but Sammy is persuasive, and she gives him the medication. The two begin a relationship that causes additional tensions, because interracial marriage with Hannah would be illegal. Sammy's father is not inclined to cooperate. He is sent to a brutal prison for refusing to swear his allegiance by answering "yes" on an unjustly-worded loyalty questionnaire. Sammy's sister Kei falls in love with a draft resistance leader, Frankie Suzuki, and she also joins the resisters advocating for the rights of her people.
Act II
The loving family is torn apart by the tragedy of the internment, and each member is profoundly changed by living with the consequences. Masaoka manages to obtain Washington's permission for the Japanese-Americans to enlist in US armed forces, but only if they take on the most dangerous assignments in the war in Italy. Eager to prove his loyalty, Sammy enlists in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a US Army unit consisting of American-born sons of Japanese immigrants, and he fights bravely in Europe. He leads fellow Nisei on a suicide mission, in which the majority of the soldiers are killed.
Meanwhile, Kei and Frankie, who are still in love, help lead the resistance. Eventually, Frankie's scuffles with a military policeman lead to Hannah's accidental and fatal shooting. Hearing of this, Sammy is enraged at Kei and Frankie, blaming them for Hannah's death. Grandpa Ojii-chan, who has managed to grow a crop of vegetables in the mountain's rough terrain, dies peacefully while in his garden. After the war, Sammy and Kei attempt to reconcile, but their actions and the hurtful words that followed from their differing responses to the internment and loyalty questionnaire cause them to separate for many decades.
In the present day, old Sam learns that the woman who brought him the envelope is his niece – the daughter of Kei and Frankie. Sam opens the envelope and finds a posthumous bequest from Kei, together with a Life magazine article that tells about Sam’s heroics during World War II. He realizes that he has a chance to forgive and to share in the love and compassion of his family.