Farewell to Manzanar: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

In fact, Papa has made his cane himself in Fort Lincoln. He continues to use it even after his limp disappears—it becomes a dignifying accessory, and Jeanne calls it a “sad, homemade version” of the samurai swords his ancestors wielded in Japan. Understanding Papa’s Japanese heritage helps Jeanne understand “how Papa’s life could end at a place like Manzanar.” Although he doesn’t die during internment, he never recovers from the experience, whereas for Jeanne the camp is “like a birthplace.”

Papa is born the oldest son in a samurai family. Once powerful and landed, by the time he comes of age Japan is rapidly industrializing and feudal clans are falling from power. As a teenager, Papa goes to military school but suddenly he drops out, borrows some money from his favorite aunt, and sets off for Hawaii. He’s a “headstrong idealist” and doesn’t want to preside over the decline of his family.

Papa arrives in Honolulu in 1904. Walking through town, he sees a “Workers Wanted” sign on a building; thrilled that he can read the English, he decides to apply and buys a stylish new suit in preparation for his interview. When he returns to the building, he finds a group of Chinese and Japanese field hands waiting to work in the sugarcane fields. They laugh at his outfit and he rushes away, humiliated.

A few weeks later, Papa meets a lawyer from Idaho who offers to buy his passage to the states and put him up in exchange for three years’ work as a houseboy. Papa accepts, in order to avoid working in the fields like other Asian immigrants. In Idaho he works as a valet, cook, chauffer, and handyman; his employer helps him get into the University of Idaho, and he hopes to get a law degree.

However, in the meantime Papa meets Mama. She was born in Hawaii, where her father was a fieldworker. Her parents eventually settled in eastern Washington; they have high hopes that their daughter, because Japanese women are so rare in the mainland U.S., will marry very advantageously. Mama’s parents promise her to the son of a wealthy Japanese farmer.

Mama meets Papa at a wholesale market where her parents are selling produce and Papa is unloading vegetables; she is seventeen, and he is a dapper twenty-five-year-old. Mama’s parents dislike him because he lives a “fast” life and often borrows money. Mama sometimes says that Papa asked her to borrow money from Granny. Granny gave Mama a five-dollar bill, which was all she had; but when Mama gave it to Papa, he stalked furiously into the kitchen, threw the money in the fire, and said, “if that’s all you’ve got, I’d rather have nothing!”

Mama attempts to run away with Papa, but her brothers eventually find her, take her home, and lock her in her bedroom. However, Mama is so despairing that her brother Charlie takes pity on her and lets her out. She and Papa elope and move to Oregon, where Papa works in a restaurant and she finds a job as a dietician. Mama soon gives birth to Woody and has a child about every two years, all while moving around for Papa’s various jobs.

Papa believes deeply in the importance of education and often brags that he attended law school, but he never actually finished university. Jeanne doesn’t know why he dropped out, but she surmises that because he was “absurdly proud” he couldn’t stomach the enormous prejudice he’d be facing if he pursued a professional career. On the other hand, Papa has a pattern of starting projects and leaving them unfinished. That’s why he goes through so many jobs: he’s a lumberjack, dentist, and farmer.

Eventually, Papa settles the family in northern California where he raises fruit, but when the Depression strikes he loses his land and has to work as a migrant laborer while supporting Mama and eight children. Just before Jeanne is born, he becomes a fisherman, doing well enough to buy his two boats and even make a down payment on a new car, two weeks before the Pearl Harbor bombing.

Jeanne acknowledges that even without internment, Papa could have lost his business or wrecked a boat—being a fisherman is hardly without risk. However, Pearl Harbor “snipped off” the life he was building for his family in California.

For Jeanne, the prewar years are represented by Papa and Mama’s silver anniversary celebration in 1940: Papa wore a new suit and Mama an elegant dress. Jeanne always remembers them standing around the dining room table, which was piled with silver gifts brought by friends and family; a huge buffet was spread in the kitchen, and relatives and fishing buddies had congregated to celebrate. When it was time to carve the pig, Papa theatrically chopped off the head in two strokes, to everyone’s delight. After he finished carving, he imperiously told his children to bring plates and distribute food to the guests.

Father is “not a great man”—he’s never economically successful, he brags a lot, and he yells at his family. But he always maintains his “self-respect,” and he works well at whatever profession he undertakes. He does everything with “flourish,” and even his fellow inmates at Fort Lincoln remember him because he each morning he translated the English newspapers into Japanese, altering his voice and making the news into an oration.

At Fort Lincoln, Papa worked as an interviewer, helping the Justice Department interview other men who couldn’t speak English. He became addicted to the rice wine the men made in their barracks. Both his feet got frostbite, in an incident that he always refused to discuss.