How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
He had nothing in principle against the vacationers from Seattle who frequented San Piedro all summer long—most islanders disliked them because they were city people—but on the other hand he did not especially enjoy seeing them as they wandered up and down Main Street. Tourists reminded him of other places and elicited in him a prodding doubt that living here was what he wanted. (4.9)
San Piedro is kind of an insular place, and even Ishmael, the somewhat worldly reporter, seems to share in some of that closed-off attitude and is not super-welcoming of visitors and other interlopers.
Quote #2
"Suckers all look alike," said Dale. "Never could tell them guys apart." (4.90)
Dale is one of the fishermen Art Moran interviews after Carl Heine's death. The fishermen point Art in the direction of Kabuo Miyamoto, who had been out fishing that night as well. Dale actually doesn't immediately remember which member of the Miyamoto family was the captain of the Islander, so this is how he explains his confusion. Lovely.
Quote #3
And the majority of Japs, Horace recalled, inflicted death over the left ear, swinging in from the right. (5.33)
According to Horace Whaley (the coroner), the wound on Carl Heine's head resembles some of the ones he saw during World War II.
Quote #4
"Puts me in mind of a type of gun butt wound I saw a few times in the war. One of those kendo strikes the Japs used."
"Kendo?" said Art Moran.
"Stick fighting," Horace explained. "Japs are trained in it from when they're kids. How to kill with sticks."
"Ugly," said the sheriff. "Jesus." (5.52-55)
Here, Horace explains that Carl's wound looks an awful lot (to him) like the ones inflicted by Japanese soldiers using kendo blows during World War II. As you can see from the use of the slur "Jap" here and in the previous quote, Horace is not particularly fond of the Japanese.
Quote #5
Then—and afterward he would remember this, during the trial of Kabuo Miyamoto, Horace Whaley would recall having spoken these words (though he would not repeat them on the witness stand)—he said to Art Moran that if he were inclined to play Sherlock Holmes he ought to start looking for a Jap with a bloody gun butt—a right-handed Jap, to be precise. (5.75)
Although apparently Horace didn't feel quite enough on the up-and-up to repeat this to the court, he definitely set Art Moran on the trail of a "Jap" with his analysis of the head wound. The moment makes clear that there's a lot of prejudice and animosity—as opposed to evidence—behind his recommendation. Otherwise, why would he hesitate to say it in court?
Quote #6
In the back of Judge Lew Fielding's courtroom sat twenty-four islanders of Japanese ancestry, dressed in the clothes they reserved for formal occasions. No law compelled them to take only these rear seats. They had done so instead because San Piedro required it of them without calling it a law. (7.1)
Here we get yet another example of the ongoing insidious racism and animosity toward the Japanese that pervade San Piedro.
Quote #7
Thirty-nine Japanese worked at the Port Jefferson mill, but the census taker neglected to list them by name, referring instead to Jap Number 1, Jap Number 2, Jap Number 3, Japan Charlie, Old Jap Sam, Laughing Jap, Dwarf Jap, Chippy, Boots, and Stumpy—names of this sort instead of real names. (7.2)
Discussing the history of Japanese Americans in San Piedro, we get this charming tale of how particular workers were "identified." Sounds like a nice welcoming place... not.
Quote #8
With all the seriousness of a fortune-teller she predicted that white men would desire Hatsue and seek to destroy her virginity. She claimed that white men carried in their hearts a secret lust for pure young Japanese girls. Look at their magazines and moving pictures, Mrs. Shigemura said. Kimonos, sake, rice paper walls, coquettish and demure geishas. White men had their fantasies of a passionate Japan—girls of burnished skin and willowy long legs going barefoot in the wet heat of rice paddies—and this distorted their sex drives. (7.39)
When Hatsue is young, Mrs. Shigemura tells Hatsue that white men often get their jollies by exoticizing the Japanese, turning them into a stereotyped fantasy rather than really understanding or seeing them and their culture. For this reason, she warns Hatsue against hooking up with a white boy.
Quote #9
"First of all, you've got Horace's off-the-cuff statement regarding a coincidental resemblance between the would in Carl Heine's head and ones he saw inflicted by Japanese soldiers—now does that really point us toward Miyamoto? You've got Etta Heine, who I won't get into, but suffice it to say I don't trust that woman. She's hateful, Art; I don't trust her." (18.24)
This is Judge Fielding talking to Art Moran, who has just come to him for a warrant. Unlike a lot of the other people involved in this case, Fielding seems inclined to try to keep racist sentiments and biases out his life (and courtroom), so he's pretty hesitant to go after Kabuo Miyamoto on the basis of the circumstantial evidence that people like Etta Heine are offering.
Quote #10
It occurred to him, too, that for all his arrogance Horace Whaley had been right. For here was the Jap with the bloody gun butt Horace had suggested he look for. Here was the Jap he'd been led to inexorably by every islander he'd spoken with. (18.86)
Here we're dipping into Art Moran's mind through free indirect discourse. He now seems to be convinced of Miyamoto's guilt, viewing this conclusion as somehow "inexorable." Because he's inwardly using the same slurs that Horace and others throw around so liberally, it appears that Art's looking at the case through his own lens of prejudice.
Quote #11
"The counsel for the state," added Nels Gudmundsson, "has proceeded on the assumption that you will be open, ladies and gentlemen, to an argument based on prejudice. He has asked you to look closely at the face of the defendant, presuming that because the accused man is of Japanese descent you will see an enemy there. […] If you see in his face a lack of emotion, if you see in him a silent pride, it is the pride and hollowness of a veteran of war who has returned home to this. He has returned to find himself the victim of prejudice—make no mistake about it, this trial is about prejudice—in the country he fought to defend." (29.10)
In his closing arguments, Nels finally calls out the elephant in the room, namely the racism and xenophobia that's been coloring everyone's impressions of Miyamoto. He makes a compelling plea for people to put those feelings aside... unfortunately, all of the jury members except one march right out and vote to convict.