How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
He was, his son remembered, morally meticulous, and though Ishmael might strive to emulate this, there was nevertheless this matter of the war—this matter of the arm he'd lost—that made such scrupulosity difficult. (4.19)
This is Ishmael thinking about how different he is from his father, attributing their differences to his participation in the war and all he endured there.
Quote #2
"He got hit pretty hard with something fairly flat, Art. 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." (5.52)
Even a decade (ish) after World War II ended, you can see that people still think a lot about the war during the novel's present-day timeline. Here, Horace Whaley sees a head wound (one that ultimately turns out to be from a boat) and concludes it's got to be from a kendo-esque strike.
Quote #3
The fishermen felt, like most islanders, that this exiling of the Japanese was the right thing to do, and leaned against the cabins of their stern-pickers and bow-pickers with the conviction that the Japanese must go for reasons that made sense: there was a war on and that changed everything. (7.14)
The novel takes us through the period after the bombing of Pearl Harbor when Japanese Americans were forced to enter internment camps. Here, we get the perspective of the fictional fishermen of San Piedro on these events.
Quote #4
He had come home from the war and seen in his own eyes the disturbed empty reaches he'd seen in the eyes of other soldiers he'd known. They did not so much seem to stare right through things as to stare past the present state of the world into a world that was permanently in the distance for them and at the same time more immediate than the present. (11.3)
Sitting and reflecting on things in his jail cell, Kabuo expresses feeling the same kind of hollowness and disorientation that Ishmael, too, seems to experience. Also like Ishmael, he's always kind of looking into the past rather than engaging with the present.
Quote #5
The face in the hand mirror was none other than the face he had worn since the war had caused him to look inward, and though he exerted himself to rearrange it—because this face was a burden to wear—it remained his, unalterable finally. He knew himself privately to be guilty of murder, to have murdered men in the course of war, and it was this guilt—he knew no other word—that lived in him perpetually and that he exerted himself not to communicate. Yet the exertion itself communicated guilt, and he could see no way to stop it. (11.6)
Because of the fact that he killed people during the war, Kabuo kinda-sorta feels like the trial is karma rolling around and trying to punish him for those wartime deaths. Even though he's innocent of killing Carl, he still feels like a murderer.
Quote #6
"Look at my face," interrupted Hatsue. "Look at my eyes, Ishmael. My face is the face of the people who did it—don't you see what I mean? My face—it's how the Japanese look. My parents came to San Piedro from Japan. My mother and father, they hardly speak English. My family is in bad trouble now. Do you see what I mean? We're going to have trouble." (13.40)
Right after Pearl Harbor (but before Japanese internment has been announced), Hatsue is trying to impress on Ishmael the seriousness of what's happened in terms of her life and the lives of other Japanese Americans.
Quote #7
The army asked owners of mules and horses on San Piedro to register their animals with the county agent, describing the request in the pages of the Review as "a patriotic obligation": islanders were also asked to check their automobile tires and to drive in a manner consistent with preserving them: rubber was in short supply. (13.62)
Here we get some details about post-Pearl Harbor fear and wartime preparations on the island. It's kind of crazy to think about having to surrender your farm animals and drive your Prius gently to help with a war effort, no?
Quote #8
"Think of it as a war sacrifice," the FBI man interrupted. "Figure to yourself there's a war on, you see, and everybody's making some sacrifices. Maybe you could look at it that way." (14.47)
This is the FBI agent trying to put lipstick on pig—that is, convince Hisao and his family that having their personal items seized by the FBI is a good thing and part of a "war sacrifice." It must be kind of hard to view yourself as part of the U.S. war effort when the U.S. is treating you like criminals, though. Soon after this, Hisao is arrested.
Quote #9
An army truck took Fujiko and her five daughters to the Amity Harbor ferry dock at seven o'clock on Monday morning, where a soldier gave them tags for their suitcases and coats. (15.1)
Soon after Hisao was arrested, the rest of the Japanese Americans on San Piedro were ordered to head to detention camps. This quote describes the rest of the Imadas' departure from the island.
Quote #10
While they watched he turned his dark eyes to the snowfall and gazed at it for a long moment. The citizens in the gallery were reminded of photographs they had seen of Japanese soldiers. (28.45)
As Kabuo finishes testifying as part of his own defense, we learn that the residents of San Piedro who have been watching the trial are not convinced—in large part, it seems, because they seem unable to disassociate Kabuo's ancestry from the Japanese who attacked the U.S. and fought with the Axis powers.