This section comprises the falling action, the coming together and meshing of forces which had been at odds. After suffering months of displacement, the Wakatsukis acquire a makeshift contentment. In nature, Ko takes temporary refuge from the dilemma of which of the two warring governments is right and which nation—Japan or the U.S.—claims the greatest share of his soul. As Jeanne describes the inspiration of Mount Whitney, it "represented those forces in nature, those powerful and inevitable forces that cannot be resisted, reminding a man that sometimes he must simply endure that which cannot be changed."
The irony of the name Manzanar, Spanish for "apple orchard," echoes the invigorating forces of nature which replenish spirits and restore interest in life. Like prisoners, internees turn to "the little bit of busywork you had right in front of you, [which] became the most urgent thing." Sublimating despair and rage, the simple will to go on keeps Mama immersed in the dietary needs of her neighbors, Papa puttering at his hobbies, and the Wakatsuki boys interested in arrowheads, football, a hillbilly band, and a dance band.
The authors return to the theme of American normality, which is captured in the music and yearnings of kids who resemble teens outside internment camp fences. Twirling batons, jitterbugging to "Don't Fence Me In," a popular tune of the era, and singing "Beautiful Dreamer," "Down by the Old Mill Stream," "Shine on, Harvest Moon," and "Battle Hymn of the Republic," young people who would have graduated from schools named "Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Herbert Hoover, Sacred Heart" complete their education in camp. All the members of the fictional McIntyre family, which is the focus of the school play, Growing Pains, have Caucasian names, but are played by Oriental students named Shoji Katayama, Takudo Ando, and Kazuko Nagai. Jeanne, by this time old enough to envy older kids, thumbs the pages of Our World, the 1943-1944 yearbook, picturing "school kids with armloads of books, wearing cardigan sweaters and walking past rows of tarpapered shacks."
A minuscule subplot features a Quaker volunteer named Lois and her sweetheart, Isao, in a star-crossed Romeo and Juliet romance. Like young lovers everywhere, the pair waits until juvenile campers are asleep before withdrawing to the privacy of the desert. A romantic at heart, Jeanne comments, "It was years later that I remembered and understood what that outing must have been for them." As proved in the Dr. Seuss tale How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the joy and mystery of growing up and discovering love, just like Christmas in Whoville, arrives on time in its traditional form, even though the populace is immured behind barbed wire and scrutinized from watchtowers that sweep the rows of barracks with searchlights. In their tireless searches, the floodlights disclose no subversives—only ordinary people doing ordinary things.
