Summary—Chapter 14: In the Firebreak
In her later life, Wakatsuki concedes that Papa was right
to protest her being baptized at a young age. At the time of his
refusal, however, Jeanne cannot forgive him and feels herself drifting
farther and farther away from him. Jeanne’s oldest sister, Eleanor,
has returned to the camp because her husband has been drafted, and
she is in the camp hospital giving birth. The family is worried
because two of Jeanne’s older sisters hemorrhaged badly during childbirth,
and blood plasma is in short supply. One sister was saved by a blood transfusion
from Woody, but the other bled to death. Eleanor is in her second
day of labor, and Mama and Papa take turns sitting with her. On
the afternoon of the second day, Mama runs across the firebreak,
a patch of cleared land, shouting for Papa. Papa is afraid and runs
to meet her, but the news is good: Eleanor has given birth to a boy.
Both Mama and Papa begin to cry, but Jeanne is strangely detached.
She feels invisible as she watches her parents talk tenderly to
each other in the middle of the firebreak.
Summary—Chapter 15: Departures
Mama and Papa become even closer in the following months,
but like many of the other Japanese, most of the older Wakatsuki
children decide to relocate or join the military. By 1944,
only 6,000 people
remain in the camp, and most are children or elderly persons. Eleanor
moves back to Reno and stays with friends. Woody is drafted in August 1944,
and despite Papa’s suggestion that he refuse to serve, he reports
for duty when his unit is called up in November. The whole family
goes to see him off, and although Jeanne does not understand where
he is going, she feels the way she did when the FBI took Papa away.
Jeanne remembers the day they waved goodbye to the fleet on the
wharf in San Pedro Harbor, but now there are 500 other
proud Japanese waving goodbye. The all-Nisei 442nd
Combat Regiment that Woody joins is famous for its valor in Europe, and
one mother in camp has recently received a Congressional Medal of
Honor for a son killed in Italy. As more and more families are split
up by the departures, people begin to worry about what will happen
to them after the war.
Summary—Chapter 16: Free to Go
In December 1944,
in the last of three cases brought against the camps, the Supreme
Court rules that the camps are illegal. The first case is brought
by a Nisei university student, Gordon Hirabayashi, who violated
the curfew imposed in 1942,
but the Supreme Court upholds the War Department’s restrictions
on the movements of the Japanese. The second case is brought by
Fred Korematsu, who evaded the removal to Manzanar and underwent
plastic surgery in order to stay with his white girlfriend. Korematsu’s
case protests the fact that no German Americans or Italian Americans
were relocated, but again the Supreme Court rules in favor of the
army’s evacuation policy. The third suit is brought by
a twenty-one-year-old Nisei named Mitsue Endo, who challenges the
legality of the government’s detaining loyal citizens against their
will. The Supreme Court is forced to decide in her favor, and the
army, anticipating the decision, announces that it will close the
camps in the next twelve months.
The Japanese response to the decision is far from joyful,
as many of Manzanar’s inhabitants have no homes to which to return,
and wartime propaganda has turned public opinion against them. Prejudiced
groups such as No Japs Incorporated and The Pacific Coast Japanese
Problem League even try to block Japanese resettlement on the West
Coast. Many Japanese fear leaving the camps, but the government
insists that the camps close. Most Japanese have few problems resettling,
but rumors of attacks on returning Japanese fuel the fears of those
remaining in camp. Jeanne is confused because she has always associated
the world outside with good things like the Sears, Roebuck catalogue.
Now, however, she begins to prepare herself for what was once just
an unnamed ache: being hated. Most of the older Wakatsuki children
move to New Jersey, though they all realize that Papa will never
move back east. Jeanne compares him to a freed black slave who does
not know what to do with his freedom because slavery is all he has
ever known.
Analysis—Chapter 14
In “In the Firebreak,” Wakatsuki uses the firebreak as
a symbol of the end of her parents’ fighting. The firebreak is a
wide swath of empty land intended to prevent fire from spreading
from one part of camp to another. The birth of their grandson, which
Mama and Papa celebrate in the firebreak, is a sort of symbolic
firebreak, preventing a conflict that has been brewing since Papa
nearly struck Mama with his cane. The image of Mama running breathlessly toward
a stumbling Papa across the openness of the windswept sand represents
the psychological distance that Mama and Papa must cross to come
together again. Jeanne comments that Papa’s and her fear that Mama
would bring bad news must have slowed Mama down. This thought illustrates
that it was not actual conflict but simply the unspoken fear they
coped with on a daily basis that kept Mama and Papa from reconciling
their differences.
Analysis—Chapter 15
The departures of the older Wakatsuki children, particularly Woody,
represent the breakdown taking place within the family. Woody is
earlier a surrogate father for the younger children during Papa’s
absence, and his decision to accept being drafted into military
service distances him from his family, especially from Papa. Papa
is unable to declare loyalty to either Japan or the United States at
Fort Lincoln and supports the “Yes Yes” position on the Loyalty Oath
only as a practical measure. Woody, on the other hand, is fully loyal
to the United States and is willing to die for his country. He does
not care that the same government that has kept him imprisoned for
the last two years is now asking for his help. Along with the other
members of his all-Nisei regiment, he feels he must do his duty as
an American citizen. Papa’s struggle with being a noncitizen makes
him fearful of the outside world, but Woody can leave the camp because
he is sure of himself and his right to a place in America. Unfortunately
for the family, however, Woody’s strength in the face of adversity
is what has kept the family together, and his departure begins the
final stage of the family’s deterioration.
