Chapter 19, Re-Entry Summary and Analysis

As the time nears for the Wakatsuki family to return to Los Angeles from Manzanar, Papa Wakatsuki decides that they will return to Los Angeles in a car, on his own, in style, not on the bus. Mama tries to talk him out of it, but his pride is too great to take the bus. He walks to the nearby town of Lone Pine and returns with a blue Nash.

It takes three trips and four days to get the nine members of the Wakatsuki family and all their acquired possessions to Los Angeles. Papa is drunk on his first real whiskey all the way to Los Angeles. He drives the car so hard that it breaks down over and over. Papa repairs a tire, a belt, and other problems One time, as if to insult him, he slams...