In the morning of December 7, 1941, Jeanne Wakatsuki has to say goodbye to her father’s sardine ship at San Pedro Harbor in California, but when the boat returns sardines are not all it brings back. News that Japanese soldiers have bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. As a result to this George, Jeanne’s father, burns all his Japanese belongings like the Japanese flag and his identity papers. Unfortunately George is still arrested by the FBI because of his nationality. Rigu, Jeanne’s mother, moves the family to a Japanese ghetto on Terminal Island, but hen moves to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles. In February 1942, President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 gives the military the authority to move things they see as a threat national security. People that are Japanese or are of Japanese descent in America can only expect their final destination. About a month later, the government tells the Wakatsuki family that they have to move in the desert 225 miles northeast of Los Angeles to a place called Manzanar Relocation Center. Arriving to Manzanar, the Japanese Americans find themselves forced to live in overcrowded living conditions, poorly prepared food, incomplete barracks, and dust that blows in every crack and knothole in the buildings. Since there is also not enough warm clothing to go around, many people become ill from immunizations and poorly conserved food. Not only that but they also have to face the indignity of the disgusting camp toilets, an offense that mainly affects Rigu. The family slowly begin to drift apart, starting by them not eating as a family anymore. Since being deserted by her family, Jeanne takes a sudden interest in the other people I the camp and even begins studying religious questions with a coupe of nuns. But when Jeanne has a sunstroke while imaging herself as a suffering saint, George instructs her to stop. About a year later George has returned from Fort Lincoln detention camp after being arrested. The family runs into a problem, they do not…
