By spring 1943, as families relocate, barracks begin to empty. The twelve Wakatsukis move to Block 28, which is more convenient to Mama's job as dietician at the hospital. Ko develops an interest in a neglected pear orchard, succulent gardening, painting, sketching, and making furniture from myrtle limbs. The family, with double the space they once shared, is able to create a more liveable environment by installing Sheetrock. Tight security is eased to allow for walks along the base of the Sierra Mountains. Ko takes spiritual comfort in Mt. Whitney, which resembles Fujiyama in Japan.
At Woody's insistence, the family comes to accept internment as a situation which cannot be changed, one which must be endured. Other residents make the best of their incarceration by taking advantage of "schools, churches, Boy Scouts, beauty parlors, neighborhood gossip, fire and police departments, glee clubs, softball leagues, Abbott and Costello movies, tennis courts, and traveling shows." Ironically, remaining in camp appears much less problematic than returning to a neighborhood where anti-Japanese feeling may curtail the freedoms they enjoy at Manzanar.
Jeanne, who at age ten is understandably "desperate to be 'accepted,"' embraces fourth grade activities, including girls' glee club, an overnight camping trip, and baton twirling. An aged geisha attempts to teach her the traditional Japanese skill of odori, the stylized dance performed in kabuki drama, but Jeanne opts for ballet, which proves as disappointing as lessons from the old geisha. Casting about for some kind of activity to absorb her energies, Jeanne returns to the Maryknoll nuns and studies catechism, not so much for spiritual enlightenment or grace as for the attention received by converts. Ko, of a different mind on the matter of conversion, forbids Jeanne's religious choice on the grounds that she will never find a Japanese Catholic to marry. Following a threatening, potential stalemate between Ko and Sister Bernadette, Jeanne accepts defeat and sublimates her hatred of parental authority by tossing her baton, a symbol of her autocratic father. In her words, "I would throw him into the air and watch him twirl, and catch him, and throw him high, again and again and again."
Jeanne eventually realizes that Ko was right to forbid acceptance of Catholic beliefs, mainly because she was too immature to understand the ramifications of her choice. The return of her oldest sister, Eleanor, diverts family attention to life-threatening problems. While Eleanor's husband, Shig, fights in Germany with the American infantry, she voluntarily reenters Manzanar for the last months of her pregnancy. The family is relieved when the boy baby arrives and both child and mother survive. For a change, Ko and his wife embrace, weeping in a shared love of family.
