Snow Falling on Cedars: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

Teenage Hatsue is buttoning her coat after church at the Amity Harbor Buddhist Chapel when she hears about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Hatsue’s father consults with his friends Mr. Oshiro and Mr. Nishi over the phone. He learns from Mr. Oshiro that Otto Willets, a fisherman, had unscrewed the light bulbs in the marquee of Shigeru Ichiyama’s movie theater. Meanwhile, two other men shout derogatory slurs at Ichiyama. Willets calls Shigeru Ichiyama “a dirty Jap” and asks him if he knows there was supposed to be blackout.

Oshiro calls Hisao again, telling him Amity Harbor was on high alert for a subsequent Japanese attack. Hisao takes out his shotgun. Nobody in the Imada house sleeps that night.

On the school bus the next morning, Hatsue and Ishmael learn that the Japanese are making attacks all around the Pacific Ocean. Their bus driver tells them that Roosevelt will declare war, that arrests are being made on “Jap traitors,” and that the government is freezing Japanese bank accounts. The general atmosphere is one fear—that if it happened at Pearl Harbor, it could happen in Amity Harbor. There are blackouts ordered that night all along the coast.

The radio is on all day at school, transmitting “cheerless and sober” voices. Hatsue and Ishmael’s teacher encourages the male students to “consider it an honor to meet the Japs head-on.”

Ishmael’s father publishes the paper’s first war extra. It reads “ISLAND DEFENSE. SET!” and describes the steps taken on the island to counter potential attacks. It contains, noticeably, none of the slurs present in the rhetoric of many of the other islanders; in fact, Arthur’s publication contains articles that feature Japanese islanders pledging loyalty to the United States.

Hatsue approaches Ishmael as he reads his father’s war extra. Hatsue tells Ishmael that her family’s bank accounts have been frozen—they have no way of accessing their money. Ishmael and Hatsue reflect on how surreal their current situation feels. Ishmael insists that “the Japanese forced [them] into” their current predicament. But Hatsue is hesitant to accept Ishmael’s blame. She tells him to look at her face, saying: “My face is the face of the people who did it.” Ishmael doesn’t understand Hatsue’s worry, declaring that Hatsue isn’t Japanese—she’s American. But Hatsue accepts the direness of her situation pragmatically: she tells Ishmael about the incident at the Ichiyamas’ theater. The couple promises not to let the war hurt them.

Later in the week, Ishmael helps his father with the paper, taking phone calls. The county sheriff calls, concerned about Japanese farmers keeping dynamite in their sheds. The dynamite, the sheriff speculates, might be used for “sabotage,” and should thus be turned in to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff wants Arthur to print the notice in the paper. Arthur publishes the notice, and also the defense authority’s message that, as of December 14, people of Japanese descent would no longer be permitted to ride the ferries.

Arthur also writes a story about men who had joined the “civilian defense auxiliary fire force.” Arthur singles out a few Japanese men on the force, referring to them by name in his article. Arthur tells his son that he singled these three men out because “not every fact is just a fact. […] It’s all a kind of…balancing act. […] that’s what journalism is about.” But Ishmael disagrees with his father’s assessment, arguing that journalism is only about reporting facts. Arthur replies by noting that they still have to choose which facts to print.

Arthur continues to be selective in “which facts” he publishes, actively drawing his readers’ attention to acts of loyalty performed by the island’s Japanese population. “Seems like you’re favoring the Japs, Art,” writes in an anonymous Review reader. People cancel their subscriptions to the paper, disappointed and angered by Arthur’s supposed “favoring” of the Japanese. The Price-Rite in Anacortes backs out of its advertisements in the paper. Arthur prints the complaints he receives, and also responses to these complaints.