In her brief recap, or summary, of family history, Jeanne recalls that her father early instilled a fear of Oriental people — particularly, Chinese. After Papa's arrest and the family's move from Ocean Park to a shack on Terminal Island, where Mama and Woody's wife Chizu work in a cannery, Jeanne is terrified of an Oriental-looking Caucasian girl in her kindergarten class. The family remains on Terminal Island until February 25, 1942, when all Orientals are removed to prevent potential danger to the Long Beach Naval Station. Quakers help the Wakatsukis — Mama, sixty-five-year-old Granny, older brother Woody and his wife Chizu, Bill, Kiyo, May, and Jeanne — move to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles. Already, President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 authorizes discretionary resettlement of Japanese Americans.
Numbered and tagged like luggage, Jeanne boards a Greyhound bus with many relatives and travels to Owens Valley, then through barbed wire to the internment camp, and, finally, to their two units of Block 16, the new home for the twelve-member family. Jeanne, the youngest, delights in being so far from home and enjoys sharing a bed with Mama. The next morning, Woody optimistically oversees the sealing of knotholes to keep out desert dust, which powders the family like flour. Angered by the drafty, spartan accommodations, Mama comments, "Animals live like this."
