At Cabrillo Homes, he continues spinning dreams of success through a Japanese-built housing project and a failed venture into the dried abalone business. Because he has acclimated himself to West Coast life, he rejects the call of his children to New jersey and drives his family home to Long Beach via three round trips across the desert. The real test of Ko's resilience is his proferred freedom, which he rejects until government edicts force him to return to civilian life. While Mama works at the hospital, he retires from work and devotes himself to simple pleasures, puttering about his rock garden, making dentures, and building furniture. Capable of cowing Woody into postponing military service until a draft notice makes it obligatory, Ko climbs back to the managerial spot in the Wakatsuki household and a position of importance as reader and translator of the newspaper to inmates who can't read English.

Like the contrasting masks of the theater, Ko, the dual enemy/savior of the Wakatsuki family, struts with pride, but batters against a wall of local accusation that he has gained release from Fort Lincoln through collaboration.īoldly rejecting the label of inu and thrusting himself out of self-imposed house arrest, Ko turns his cane into a swagger stick, a mark of pride in manhood. His alcoholism and unbridled outbursts terrify Jeanne, who has no easy access to escape. Ko's return, however, tips the delicate balance of a family on the edge.

In the early days, when she shares Mama's bed and wears baggy World War I surplus garb, her giggles bubble happily to the surface. Most significant to Jeanne’s survival of internment is her survival of her father's manic-depressive antics.

Jeanne farewell to manzanar