The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

They came on boats at the beginning of the twentieth century clutching phony pictures and chasing false promises.  They were abused, abandoned and tested.  They were strong, disappointed, and broken.  They worked in the fields, in the homes of the wealthy and in small stores in J-town.  They raised families, buried children and forty years later they disappeared.  "They" are young mail order brides from Japan.  A mystery narrator follows the lives of the group by listing fictional specifics drawn from real documents using the consistent narrative style I began with.  It is not a pretty story from the beginning and, in the end, their incarceration forces the reader to ponder again one of America's most devastating decisions.