Snow Falling on Cedars: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

Hatsue and her family leave San Piedro. It’s a miserable journey to the internment camp. They travel by train to a transit camp, sleeping in horse stables and eating only canned figs, white bread, and coffee. The food makes Fujiko sick, and she is ashamed at having to relieve herself in front of others, barely maintaining her dignity. They board another train after three days. It’s crowded and miserable, and a baby won’t stop screaming. Eventually they arrive in Manzanar.

The Imada family is assigned a place to live. Their room is adorned only with cots, mattresses, a lightbulb, an oil heater, and army blankets. The latrines outside overflow. Everybody is sick and apologetic about it. There is nowhere to wash their hands. The prisoners suffer silently, for “there [is] no sense in talking to anyone about things,” since everyone is in the same situation.

One day, Hatsue’s sister, Sumiko, intercepts a letter Ishmael sent Hatsue. Sumiko opens and reads the love letter before bringing it “regretfully” to Fujiko. Fujiko reads the letter and is shocked and angered, realizing that her suspicions about Hatsue are correct. She knows Hatsue has been sexually intimate with Ishmael, and compares this to her own passionless, young relations with Hisao. Fujiko had suffered in silence, but Hatsue sought out pleasure. Fujiko wonders whether her daughter loves the white boy. She resolves to confront her daughter, but to “behave with dignity.”

Before Fujiko confronts her daughter, a group of boys from the island, including Kabuo, come by the make repairs and improvements on the Imadas’ sorry excuse for a home. Hatsue comes back while they are there, and Kabuo tells Hatsue he is happy to see her. Once the boys leave, Fujiko confronts her daughter about the love letter. Fujiko angrily tells Hatsue that she has deceived her family and herself. Fujiko proceeds to the post office, instructing the clerk to hold all their mail. She writes a letter to Ishmael’s parents, telling them everything. She apologizes and says everything is over now.

Fujiko shows the letter to Hatsue, who informs her that the letter is unnecessary: Hatsue will write her own letter to break things off with Ishmael, as she realized she didn’t love him anymore when they were on the train en route to Manzanar. Hatsue says that she knows Ishmael isn’t right for her because she always had “this feeling like [she] loved him and at the same time couldn’t love him.” Hatsue then writes her own letter to Ishmael.

Kabuo brings the drawers he made for the family’s room, and Fujiko invites him to stay. She does this again, as Kabuo delivers other things for the family. A couple nights later, Kabuo asks Hatsue out to walk with him. She refuses, but realizes that Kabuo is attractive and kind. She knows that she can’t stay sad over Ishmael forever. A few months later, “when Ishmael was mostly a persistent ache buried beneath the surface of her daily life,” she begins to pursue a relationship with Kabuo. They talk about their mutual dream to farm strawberries once they return to San Piedro. Later, they kiss for the first time, and Hatsue feels sadness, realizing “how different his mouth was from Ishmael’s. He smelled of earth and his body’s strength was far greater than her own.” She tells him he must be gentle, and he says he will try.