In the first chapter of the novel, we are introduced to the twenty-five-year-old protagonist, Ichiro, at a difficult and pivotal moment in his life. Ichiro is in the process of returning home to Seattle after four years away. Two of those years were spent in a Japanese internment camp. The other two were spent in jail.

Almost as soon as Ichiro gets off the bus, he encounters a friend from his days before prison. Eto Minato, dressed in army fatigues, is temporarily thrilled to see his old friend “Itchy.” When Ichiro tells Eto he is just getting home and hasnot seen his family for years, Eto asks Ichiro when he got discharged. When Ichiro quietly admits that he was never in the war, Eto calls him a no-no boy and spits on himfor choosing jail over fighting for the US.

As Ichiro continues towards home, he is taunted on the street by African Americans who call him Jap-boy and tell him to “go back to Tokyo.” He soon arrives at the place where his parents and teenage brother now live, in a grocery store formerly owned by another Japanese family. He looks around,bothered by the thought of everyone sleeping in one room, when his father greets him, visibly pleased to see him.