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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 al