The Wakatsuki family watches Papa's fishing boats rush back to the harbor as news of the Pearl Harbor bombing spreads.

FBI agents arrest Papa on suspicion of espionage based on his commercial fishing license and Japanese ancestry.

Mama smashes her china piece by piece on the floor rather than sell it to a buyer offering an insultingly low price.

The Wakatsuki family arrives at Manzanar concentration camp in the remote California desert and is served inedible food.

Papa returns to Manzanar after nearly a year away, visibly aged by a decade and now walking with a cane.

Papa violently attacks Mama after she and Jeanne tell him that other prisoners believe he is a traitor and informant.

Kiyo punches Papa in the face to stop him from beating Mama with his cane.

Soldiers fire tear gas and weapons at the December Riot protesters, dispersing the crowd and killing two people.

The government issues a Loyalty Oath to all imprisoned Japanese Americans, demanding declarations of allegiance and willingness to serve in the US military.

Papa defends the YES/YES response at a camp mess hall meeting and physically attacks a protester who chants 'inu' at him.

The Wakatsuki family moves to Block 28, gaining significantly more living space and improved facilities within the camp.

Woody is drafted and leaves Manzanar to fight for the United States military, proud to serve as a patriot.

The Supreme Court rules in Ex Parte Endo that the government cannot detain loyal citizens against their will, triggering camp closures.

Papa purchases a sedan and drives it recklessly through the camp as a final act of defiance before the family departs Manzanar.

Jeanne returns to the ruins of Manzanar with her husband and children and finally makes peace with her past.

Farewell to Manzanar opens with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which triggers Papa's arrest and the family's forced relocation to Manzanar concentration camp. Papa's return from Fort Lincoln brings not relief but a broken, volatile man whose drinking and abuse fracture the family further. The December Riot and the subsequent Loyalty Oath deepen divisions within the camp, forcing every imprisoned Japanese American to publicly declare their allegiance. As the war ends and the camps begin to close, the family departs Manzanar and struggles to rebuild their lives in a society that still views them as foreigners. Jeanne navigates adolescence shadowed by shame, identity conflict, and the lingering damage of internment. Decades later, she returns to the ruins of Manzanar and at last makes peace with everything she endured there.

The major turning points of Jeanne's internment and its aftermath.

Papa burns all documents connecting him to Japan immediately after learning of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Mama relocates the family from their Long Beach home to the predominantly Japanese neighborhood of Terminal Island.

The US Navy orders all Terminal Island residents to evacuate within 48 hours, forcing Mama to sell belongings at a loss.

The family receives a letter from Papa confirming he is being held at the all-male Fort Lincoln camp in North Dakota.

Woody organizes his brothers to patch the holes in the barracks walls and floors to make the family's quarters livable.

Jeanne and many other prisoners suffer repeated bouts of illness caused by typhoid vaccinations and poor mess hall sanitation.

An elderly woman shares her makeshift cardboard partition with Mama in the communal latrines so both women can have privacy.

Jeanne's family stops eating meals together in the mess hall, beginning a breakdown of their family unit that outlasts the camp.

Jeanne begins attending Catholic recreation classes run by nuns in the camp and becomes captivated by stories of martyrs and saints.

Woody visits Papa's relatives in Japan and discovers that his grandfather erected a gravestone for Papa, presumed dead since 1913.

Woody's great-aunt reveals through tears that she was the person who gave Papa the money to make his journey to the United States.

Papa's post-war housing collective fails completely, leaving Mama to take a job at a cannery as the family's sole breadwinner.

On Jeanne's first day of sixth grade, her classmate Radine openly expresses shock that Jeanne can speak English.

Jeanne and Radine perform together as baton twirlers for a band at a Boy Scout event in seventh grade.

Jeanne becomes the first person in her family to graduate from university and marries a non-Japanese man.

Before the family even reaches Manzanar, a series of dislocations strip away their stability: Papa's arrest, forced moves across Los Angeles, and the chaos of Terminal Island's evacuation. Once inside the camp, daily life is defined by illness, lost privacy, and the slow erosion of the family's communal bonds as shared mealtimes disappear. Jeanne finds small anchors in extracurricular activities and new friendships, while Papa's mental decline and failed ambitions after the war force Mama into the role of breadwinner. Meanwhile, Woody's journey to Japan uncovers hidden family history, revealing how little the children know of their father's origins. Post-Manzanar, Jeanne navigates the subtle racism of ordinary school life, finding friendship in Radine while still being excluded from full social belonging. Her story closes with a private but significant milestone: becoming the first in her family to finish university and build a life fully on her own terms.

The everyday struggles and hidden moments behind the main story.

Rather than be escorted from his home by FBI agents, Papa proudly leads them out the door himself to preserve his dignity.

The family reads a newspaper article reporting that Papa was arrested for allegedly delivering oil to Japanese submarines.

President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 and talk of forced imprisonment for Japanese Americans intensifies across California.

When Papa's bus arrives at Manzanar, Jeanne alone steps forward to embrace him, crying against his chest.

Papa forbids Jeanne from going through with her Catholic baptism shortly after arriving at Manzanar.

Jeanne learns that fellow prisoners believe Papa informed on the Japanese American community to buy his release from Fort Lincoln.

Kiyo spends two weeks in a separate barracks after striking Papa, then asks for and receives his father's forgiveness.

Papa refuses to join the December Riot, believing it is foolish and that the protesters will be forced back to Japan.

Papa and Woody debate the Loyalty Oath, weighing the risk of deportation against the betrayal of answering YES to a country that imprisoned them.

Papa sits alone by the fire after the YES/YES meeting, singing the Japanese national anthem and weeping quietly.

Jeanne watches an orphaned girl receive her Catholic confirmation ceremony and is filled with longing for similar recognition and belonging.

Papa forbids Jeanne from pursuing Catholic conversion a second time, provoking intense anger in her toward him.

Jeanne nearly drops out of high school as her social world contracts and her path diverges sharply from her friend Radine's.

Jeanne is crowned Carnival Queen after a classmate exposes and halts the school administration's attempt to prevent her from winning.

Walking through the near-empty ruins of Manzanar, Jeanne finally understands the deep shame she has carried since childhood and releases it.

Jeanne's story is shaped as much by what people feel and discover as by what they do: Papa's defiant dignity at the moment of his arrest, the family's shock at reading his name in a newspaper, and the wrenching revelation that camp neighbors consider him a traitor. The Loyalty Oath forces impossible choices on people already stripped of rights, and Papa's weeping by the fire after the YES/YES meeting captures the private anguish behind every public stance. As Jeanne grows up inside and outside the camp, her desires for identity and belonging emerge through longing glances at confirmation ceremonies, near-withdrawals from school, and a hard-won election victory that leaves her questioning whether her peers truly see her. The chapters detailing Woody's discoveries in Japan hint at a whole dimension of Papa's past that his children never knew, quietly reframing the man whose decline they witnessed. Finally, Jeanne's pilgrimage to the ruins of Manzanar is the ultimate turning point: the moment she understands the shame she has carried for decades and chooses to lay it down.