55 pages • 1-hour read
Paper Wishes
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Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “March”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.
Ten-year-old Manami Tanaka and her grandfather walk on the beach near their home on Bainbridge Island, Washington. As Manami notices the surf washing away her grandfather’s footprints, she feels unsettled. She remembers the soldiers who came to her family’s home on the previous day. She forgets the uneasy feeling when she sees her family’s dog, Yujiin, racing across the sand. Yujiin has escaped the house and is eager to be with Grandfather on the beach. Manami notes that the usually energetic dog calms himself and behaves “like an old man” (3) when he is with Grandfather. Manami’s grandfather listens to a warship that has entered the port and comments on how unusual it is for the ship to be there.
Manami feels uneasy again. She confesses to Grandfather that the soldiers scare her. Grandfather tells her that the soldiers fear her, too, because she is of Japanese descent. The soldiers are afraid that people like Manami and her family will be disloyal, because the United States is at war with Japan. Manami protests that she is an American. Grandfather comments to Yujiin that this beach is where they first met, when Yujiin was hungry and needed a home and Grandfather was grieving the loss of his wife and needed a friend. Grandfather tells Manami that it is time for school. Manami thinks that he sounds sad.
At school, Manami hurries to join her friend Kimmi. Kimmi tells her that her mother thinks the soldiers will send them to prison. It seems like a normal school day, but at the end of the day, Mrs. Brown asks the Japanese American students to stay behind for a moment. She sadly tells them that this is their last day at school and that their parents will explain what is happening when they get home. She tells them to collect their things and says she will pray that she sees them all again soon. Manami runs home, but her visibly upset parents refuse to explain what is going on.
The next day, Manami notices that her family’s routine is “[n]ormal and not normal” (8). After her morning walk with Grandfather, she goes to the room she once shared with her older sister and brother, Keiko and Ron, who are now away at college in Indiana. Manami joins her family for breakfast. She tries again to get someone to tell her what is going on, but the adults all assure her that everything is fine. After breakfast, she helps her mother in the garden. Mother tells Manami to harvest everything she can and pack it in pillowcases. Then, Mother and Manami wash and fold all of the household’s clothing and linens. Manami is confused by all of the work they are doing, but she does not protest.
The next morning, Manami asks again about what is happening. Finally, her mother explains that in four days, they will have to leave their home. Manami is upset to learn that no one knows where they are being sent or for how long. Mother says that today, they have to go into town for a medical exam and to register. In town, Manami and her family join a large crowd of Japanese Americans all waiting to do the same thing. After an hour in line, they give the soldiers their names. The soldiers give them ID tags with the number 104313 and say to put tags on their belongings and on themselves on Monday when they are scheduled to be transported. The doctor pronounces the family members healthy, and they walk back home.
Manami’s mother explains that they can only take the things they can fit in four suitcases. She packs and repacks over and over, trying to fit as much as possible. On Sunday, she dresses up and tells Manami to do the same: They are going to say goodbye to their friends on Bainbridge Island. They go to their church, where the pastor holds a special service. The Bainbridge Islanders who are not of Japanese descent are sad to see their Japanese American friends being taken away, and they express hope that it will not be for very long.
On Monday morning, Manami’s mother wakes her very early. The family silently eats a hurried breakfast. Grandfather puts down some food and water for Yujiin and sadly tells the dog goodbye. The family’s pastor will come by later to get Yujiin, Grandfather says. Manami is shocked and distraught: She did not understand that they would have to leave Yujiin. Her mother cries, but she can offer no comfort.
When her parents go outside, Manami secretly hides the dog inside her coat before she joins them. An army truck full of their Japanese American neighbors stops, and the soldiers help the family into the back. Manami makes it into the truck without Yujiin being discovered, and she is able to hide the small dog on the ferry trip to the mainland. While the family is waiting to board a bus, however, the soldiers discover Yujiin. They take him away and put him in a crate. Manami screams.
Chapter 2 Summary: “April”
Manami and her family ride for two days on a train. She notices that when the soldiers bring food around they sit and eat and talk with everyone, and no one seems afraid. She also notices that Grandfather does not want to eat anything. Kimmi comes to sit near Manami and offers her sympathy about Yujiin, but Manami is too sad to reply. She pretends to be falling asleep, and eventually Kimmi leaves.
Later, the train finally arrives in a desert area in California. Boarding buses, the Bainbridge Islanders comment on how dry and ugly the landscape is. They hope that the place they are headed is better, but it is actually worse: It is a red-dirt landscape with buildings covered in black paper, surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers. Manami sees a sign that says “Manzanar” (28). Her mother cries as she looks at the desolate land. Father says that, since the soldiers are referring to it as a “village,” they will work together to make it one (28).
The Bainbridge Islanders are assigned to Block 3, a partially finished set of 14 barracks. Manami’s family is told they will live in Barracks 4, with the Soto family. Mother arranges four cots together for herself, Father, Grandfather, and Manami. There are only four cots left, but the Soto family has six people—and a baby on the way. Mother urges Mrs. Soto to sit down, and the pregnant woman begins to cry. Grandfather says that he has “lived too long” (30) and sits down on a cot. Worried and sad, Manami curls up on the cot next to Grandfather’s as Mother begins to string privacy curtains to screen off her family’s beds.
When a loud clanging announces dinner, Mother and Manami go outside to get in line. Grandfather says that he is not hungry, but Mother says she will bring him some food anyway. Kimmi comes skipping down the line to tell Manami that her family is in Barracks 7. Manami still does not speak, but Kimmi and Mother chat briefly. Father joins them, and finally Manami and her family get some food. The food is unfamiliar and unappetizing, but Manami is hungry, so she eats.
Two days later, Manami still has not spoken. She feels as if the camp’s dust is coating her throat and making it impossible to speak. Mother holds her, gently encouraging her to speak and share her feelings. When Manami remains silent, Mother tells her to go outside and play with the other children. Grandfather advises Mother to let Manami be silent if this is what she needs to do. Manami finds Kimmi among some children laughing and playing. When the other children make fun of Manami for not talking, Kimmi takes her hand and vigorously defends her. Manami pulls away, and Kimmi reluctantly lets her go off on her own.
Father helps the other men work on building the incomplete barracks and the family moves into a newly built room that is nearly identical to their first room. Mother makes a curtain out of a pillowcase to try to keep out some of the dust that constantly seeps in through the window. She organizes their room and tries to make it more comfortable by creating a table from stacked suitcases and a sheet. She creates a family altar and plants a small garden outside with seeds brought from home, and she tells Manami it will be her job to fetch water from the pump to water the plants each day. Manami, missing the ocean, uses Grandfather’s small rake to make a wave pattern in the dirt outside their barracks. She keeps thinking that she hears Yujiin barking each time the wind blows.
Mother gives Manami paper to write letters to her older siblings. She writes “Please come” (38) to both Keiko and Ron. She takes the bowls for watering the plants to the pump and leaves them there while she goes to the administration building to mail her letters. When the men there speak sharply to her, asking what she wants, she is unable to speak and runs away without mailing her letters.
On her way back to the pump, she thinks that she sees Yujiin drinking from one of the bowls, and she runs to greet him. When she gets there, however, Yujiin is not there. Confused and sad, she fills the bowls and goes back to Barracks 8 to water her mother’s garden. She feels in her pocket for the letters, meaning to give them to her mother to mail, but the letters are gone.
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
In Chapters 1 and 2, respectively titled “March” and “April,” the structure of the narrative is introduced: Each chapter will cover events from one particular month of Manami’s experiences, beginning in March 1942, when the first general removals of Japanese Americans began with the families on Bainbridge Island.
Placing the story in this setting creates a sense of historic significance. It also emphasizes the family’s shock and confusion, introducing the theme of The Problem of Unjust Persecution. Manami’s family does not have weeks to hear about the removals and make preparations, as families in other areas of the West Coast do: They are among the very first Japanese American families to be incarcerated. Manami’s mother’s packing and repacking in Chapter 1 underscores the panic and confusion the Tanaka family feels as they try to hurriedly condense their lives into what they can carry away with them in just a few days’ time.
Over and over, the first two chapters reinforce the idea that this hurried removal is both cruel and unnecessary. Chapter 1 begins with a moment between Manami and her grandfather that should be idyllic and happy. The two enjoy a walk on the beach one morning, and their beloved dog escapes the house to join them. The scene is tinged with sadness, however, as Grandfather brings up the death of his wife when he recalls first meeting Yujiin, and Manami notices that his voice is sad when he tells Manami it is time for school. Grandfather’s mood foreshadows the sad news that Manami will soon learn: Her family is about to be forcibly removed from Bainbridge Island and sent to a concentration camp. Manami’s general sense of uneasiness and the repeated mentions of soldiers during this scene also foreshadow the revelation of this terrible news.
The conflicting tones of these two elements of the scene—the warm family moment in beautiful natural surroundings versus the undercurrent of sadness and anxiety—also create a juxtaposition that conveys that what is about to happen to Manami and her family is both unfair and unnecessary. As Manami tells Grandfather, “only my face and my name are Japanese. […] The rest of me is American” (4). Her comment underscores the message conveyed by the larger scene: Manami and her family are good, loving American people and it is wrong to treat them as a dangerous “other.”
The reactions of community members and soldiers in these chapters also demonstrate how pointlessly cruel the detention of Japanese Americans is. Mrs. Brown and the members of the Tanaka family’s church are all upset by the removal of their Japanese American neighbors and friends. They do not believe that simply having Japanese ancestry will make these ordinary American people suddenly turn into dangerous enemies. Manami makes this same point when she says that the soldiers on the train sit with everyone, talking and eating: “My neighbors do not look afraid of the soldiers. And the soldiers do not look afraid of us” (27). Policy makers, distantly removed from the everyday life of communities like Bainbridge Island, are the ones who seem to fear Americans of Japanese descent—not the soldiers who actually move among the Bainbridge Islanders.
Another element that underscores the cruelty of this persecution is the loss of Yujiin. It is clear how much Grandfather, Mother, and Manami all love the family’s little dog. Manami describes his behavior fondly; Grandfather reminisces about how Yujiin came into his life when he was sad and needed comfort; and Mother cries when it is time to leave Yujiin at the house. Manami loves the dog so much that she defies her parents and hides him under her coat. She risks upsetting armed soldiers to keep smuggling Yujiin along on their journey.
In the scene where the dog is finally discovered, the soldiers show no compassion for the devastated family or the welfare of their beloved dog. The loss of Yujiin is a pivotal moment for Manami, becoming her first experience of The Emotional and Psychological Effects of Imprisonment on Children. She is finally pushed beyond what she can bear, and she screams. Her scream of protest is futile, however, and after this defeat Manami finds herself unable to use her voice again for many months. The loss of her voice becomes an important motif in the text, reflecting the trauma she is experiencing. Once she is at Manzanar, Manami keeps thinking she hears Yujiin barking and even imagines that she sees him drinking at the pump. That she would believe such an unlikely thing demonstrates the fog of pain she is experiencing.
Despite the injustice of the characters’ situation, these opening chapters also introduce The Importance of Resilience and Adaptation. Upon arrival, the people comment on how ugly the camp is, and Manami’s mother cries: “There’s no water. No green” (28). When Mother comments that this is a prison, Father says, “We will make it a village” (28). Father’s attitude represents a way to cope with the problems at hand: He is already determined to persevere and make the best of their terrible situation, with his use of the word “village” suggesting the community and home the prisoners can build together. Quickly, Mother adopts the same attitude. She does not comment on the overcrowded and primitive living situation of Barracks 4. Instead, she secures cots for her family, hangs a privacy curtain, and assures her father that she will bring him food when he is too depressed to leave the barracks at dinner time.
Kimmi shows similar resilience: She “skips down the line” (31) as the prisoners wait for dinner and chats cheerfully with Mother. Father gets to work improving the camp along with the other men, and after the family moves to their new room, Mother organizes and improves the room. She even plants a small garden outside. The reactions of Kimmi, Father, and Mother differ sharply from the reactions of Manami and Grandfather, whose more traumatized responses suggest that not everyone adapts in the same ways, or at the same speed, when faced with adverse circumstances.
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