organization, were able to resettle in Los Angeles. After a short time, however, the order was given that Japanese Americans would have to be relocated inland. In early April, 1942, Jeanne was interned at Manzanar, in California's Owens Valley, where she remained until October, 1945. Jeanne was seven years old at the time of her internment; ten-and-a-half when she was released.

Because he operated a fishing boat off the California coast for a living, Jeanne's father, Ko Wakatsuki, was one of the first to be arrested in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. In the hysteria engendered by the attack on American soil, it was suspected that Wakatsuki, and other Japanese Americans, would be loyal to the country of his birth, and would potentially engage in espionage for Japan. Wakatsuki was imprisoned in faraway North Dakota, where he was held for almost a year. After that time, he was reunited with his family at Manzanar, but his incarceration changed him, and he returned a bitter, angry man.

At Manzanar, Ko Wakatsuki was subject to sudden, ferocious rages. He drank copiously, and when drunk, was abusive to his wife and family. Eventually, however, he became resigned to what had happened to him, and spent his days peacefully tending a Japanese garden he created on the desert grounds. When the family was released from Manzanar, Ko relocated them in Long Beach, California. While his children were determined to assimilate into the American mainstream, he stubbornly clung to his Japanese customs, trying to instill an appreciation for their heritage in his children, with little success. Having lost everything when the family was interned, Ko Wakatsuki found himself essentially "starting over from economic zero." Unable to support his family, he began drinking again, while, to his humilitation, his wife took a job at a cannery to keep food on the table. After a couple of failed attempts at starting his own business, and a near-death experience brought about by his excesses, Ko Wakatsuki returned to farming. He pulled himself together growing strawberries outside of San Jose, California, and continued in this endeavor until his death.

After returning from North Dakota, Jeanne's Father, Ko Wakatsuki, was angry and bitter,

"not the same man...something terrible had happened to him in North Dakota...He had aged ten years.  He looked over sixty, gaunt, wilted as his shirt, underweight, leaning on (a) cane and favoring his right leg".

He was a shadow of the man he used to be, and could find no place in the upside-down world with which he was faced (Chapter 5).

Jeanne says that her father had never been what one might call "a great man", not "even a very successful man".  She remembers him as having been "a poser, a braggart, and a tyrant", but even so, he had always held onto his dignity and self-respect, and "could work well at any task he turned his hand to".  No one ever found out what had happened to him in North Dakota because he would never speak of it, but the family did manage to learn that somehow, both his feet had been frostbitten there, and he had almost become an alcoholic (Chapter 6).

When Ko Wakatsuki arrived back at Manzanar, he pretty much "just sat there" in brooding isolation.  He never socialized, and Jeanne realized later that among their neighbors he was condemned, suspected of having bought his release from Fort Lincoln, because he had been released earlier than the other men.  After awhile, Papa concocted a homemade still, and began to drink all day.  This intensified his dark, dangerous mood, and he would frequently become violent.  One night, Papa was acting particularly "crazy", and began viciously beathing his wife with his cane.  Fearing that this time, he would kill her, Kiyo leaped from his bed and "punched Papa square in the face...bloodying the nose of God" (Chapter 8).