Nobusuke Tagomi is a Japanese trade official who lives and works in San Francisco. Japan controls the Pacific States of America, meaning that Tagomi is a member of the ruling class of Japanese people in the racially segregated country. He enjoys privileges due to his race and feels entitled to expect that the local Americans treat him with respect and deference. Despite his feelings of superiority, Tagomi shares a Japanese interest in artifacts and trinkets from America's past. He visits Childan's store often to purchase antiques that fascinate him, a passion he shares with many of the Japanese officials who work in the bureaucracy of the Pacific States of America. Tagomi seeks to understand those whom he considers a lesser race through the random ornaments and objects they might once have discarded. However, these items are often fake and possess no historical qualities at all. As a result, Tagomi's interest in American culture represents the colonial occupiers’ failed attempts to understand the people they are subjugating. Tagomi wants to understand America by purchasing random objects that are not even real. Any conclusions he reaches based on these objects will be inherently flawed. Due to his position of power, however, any policies he enacts based on these conclusions will be very real.