The paradox of internment stands out in bold relief as the days of internment draw to a close. The victims of unjust detainment are understandably reluctant to return to San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, cities where they once lived in peace. With racist groups like No Japs Incorporated, Home Front Commandos, and the Pacific Coast Japanese Problem League already preparing a hostile welcome, Asians tended to cling to the artificial security of Manzanar. Long accused of clannishness and refusal to assimilate, Japanese Americans, after three years of living in a "desert ghetto," feared a return to wartime animosities, marked by assaults, arson, and KKK-style nightriders with shotguns.
In a skillful mating of Americana and incongruity, Jeanne notes, "All the truly good things, it often seemed, the things we couldn't get, were outside, and had to be sent for, or shipped in. In this sense, God and the Sears, Roebuck catalogue were pretty much one and the same in my young mind." Intent on testing her faith by challenging God's generosity, she prays devoutly for nine days for apricots, which fail to arrive. No longer assured that a beneficent deity answers prayer, she returns to a faith in Sears, Roebuck and "the outside, where all such good things could be found."
