In six unforgettable, incantatory sections, the novel traces their new lives as "icture brides": the arduous voyage by boat, where the girls trade photos of their husbands and imagine uncertain futures in an unknown land ... their arrival in San Francisco and the tremulous first nights with their new husbands ... backbreaking toil as migrant workers in the fields and in the homes of white women ... the struggle to learn a new language and culture ... giving birth and raising children who come to reject their heritage . . . and, finally, the arrival of war, and the agonizing prospect of their internment.