The thing is, what happens to him—a total emasculation—is what happens to all the men in the camps, only to a more extreme degree.
Jeanne's prepping us for something major: her account of the December Riot.
Before the December Riot, everyone's kind of on edge from being treated like animals.
Meetings are held constantly so that people can vent their frustrations, which means the mess halls are constantly ringing their bells to signal meetings.
On the night of December 5, this guy Fred Tayama, whom everyone thinks is a friend of the administration, gets badly beaten by six guys.
One of the guys—a cook who's been trying to unionize the kitchen workers and who claims a Caucasian has been stealing sugar from the kitchens—gets caught.
This starts the riot. People are seriously mad that the cook got taken in.
Papa keeps Jeanne and the rest of the family with him in the barracks throughout the whole ordeal because he thinks the whole thing is both dangerous and stupid.
The leader of the riot—Joe Kurihara—used to fight for the U.S. army in WWI, and he's not putting up with this treatment anymore; under his leadership the mob gets to be too much for the Internal Security Force.
The mob splits in two, with one half going to free the cook and the other half going to kill Tayama.
When the mob gets to the police station, the military start bringing in their big guns—think tear gas and submachine guns.
In the end, the military police open fire, injuring a bunch of people and killing two young men; through the night, bells toll constantly while the police patroll the blocks.
Even after the night passes and the police have stopped patrolling, the bells keep ringing. They don't stop until noon the next day.