The first weekend in December in 1941, Jeanne is watching her father's sardine ships head out to sea. She and the other women of the community notice the boats returning. The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. Jeanne does not know what this meant at the time, but her father ("Papa") is taken away from her on the grounds that he might be delivering goods and secrets to the Japanese. Jeanne's mother ("Mama") moves her remaining children to Terminal Island, where they live among other Japanese Americans for the first time. There, Jeanne is afraid of the Asians around her, partly because she has never lived among any. Soon, the government moves the Japanese Americans to Boyle Heights, a ghetto in Los Angeles. Before they go, Mama must pare down her belongings to what they can carry. She tries to sell her valuable and beloved china, but the buyer will only give her a horribly low price. She smashes the china rather than sell it to him. The family struggles without Papa, who had always made decisions. Jeanne's older brothers take charge somewhat. Her mother and older siblings go to work at a celery-packing plant. Jeanne goes to school with a teacher who ignores her because of her race. Looking back now, Jeanne says that the war against the Japanese must have stirred up long-held racial bigotry in California. .
The family is soon sent to Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp inland. Jeanne is excited for the bus ride because she had never ridden such a vehicle before. Her family has managed mostly to stay together. When they arrive, they are fed terrible food that they politely pick at. For their living quarters, they are crowded into two small rooms. Her older brothers set up blankets as partitions for sleeping. The rooms are not very good defenses against the elements. The cold wind and harsh sand blow in during the night. When the family awakes, they are covered in sand. Jeanne's brother Woody sets everyone to work plugging up holes in the floor of the cabins and cleaning up the sand.
