Seven-year-old Jeanne, the narrator, is preparing to watch her father’s fishing boat leave from the port in Long Beach, California. Papa takes great pride in his boat, which was paid for with a loan from one of the local canneries. Unlike the usual leisurely fishing excursions, on this particular day, the boats quickly return to the harbor. As Jeanne and her family watch, perplexed at their rapid return, a passerby yells that the Japanese just bombed Pearl Harbor.

The family quickly returns home and Papa burns any documentation that associates him with Japan. Despite his precautions, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrests him, along with many others of Japanese descent who have commercial fishing licenses, claiming possible espionage. Since Papa was denied American citizenship based on his Japanese ancestry, “all he [has] left at this point [is] his tremendous dignity” as he goes to an interrogation center (8). A few days later, the family sees in a newspaper article that Papa was arrested for allegedly delivering oil to Japanese submarines. While Mama is overwhelmed with grief, Jeanne is confused; she does not cry about Papa’s absence until she next sees him a year later.