How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
One of his threats to keep us younger kids in line was "I'm going to sell you to the Chinaman." When I had entered kindergarten two years earlier, I was the only Oriental in the class. They sat me next to a Caucasian girl who happened to have very slanted eyes. I looked at her and began to scream, certain Papa had sold me out at last. My fear of her ran so deep I could not speak of it, even to Mama, couldn't explain why I was screaming…And it was still with me, this fear of Oriental faces, when we moved to Terminal Island. (1.2.3)
This has got to be one of the weirder passages in the entire book. Jeanne's basically exhibiting a racist reaction to a white girl who looks like she has "Oriental" eyes. What exactly is Jeanne reacting to? What does she think of when she looks at herself in the mirror?
Quote #5
The stories, the murmurs, the headlines of the last few months had imprinted in my mind the word HATE. I had heard my sisters say, "Why do they hate us?" I had heard Mama say with lonesome resignation, "I don't understand all this hate in the world." It was a bleak and awful-sounding word, yet I had no idea at all what shape it might take if ever I confronted it. I saw it as a dark, amorphous cloud that would descend from above and enclose us forever. (2.19.6)
Who would want to return to a place that seems like it's all about hate, especially toward a specific race? And that whole image of a dark cloud seems apt since racism can take on all sorts of forms (violent, non-violent, subtle, direct…). Maybe that's why young Jeanne is as scared as she is: it's impossible to defend yourself from racism if you don't know what that racism looks (or when or where or how it might happen).
Quote #6
To the FBI every radio owner was a potential saboteur. The confiscators were often deputies sworn in hastily during the turbulent days right after Pearl Harbor, and these men seemed to be acting out the general panic, seeing sinister possibilities in the most ordinary household items: flashlights, kitchen knives, cameras, lanterns, toy swords. (1.1.16)
We'll just point out that all this "acting out" of the "general panic"—this paranoia of the FBI—resembles the kind of freak out Jeanne shows when she sits next to that white girl with the slanted eyes.