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Snow Falling on Cedars Chapter 14
Two weeks after the bombing most of the Japanese men in the area are arrested, including Hisao, Hatsue's father. The FBI men also confiscate much of their Japanese paraphernalia, including Hatsue's mother Fujiko's special kimono. Fujiko tells her daughters that life will be hard for them now, but she is confident--life has been hard for her before. She tells her daughters not to get involved with white people: they must live among them, but they should not get intertwined with them. Hatsue protests that not all white people are bad, but her mother simply tells her that she is being overconfident and that it is better to be silent. Hatsue says she does not want to be Japanese, but at the same time she feels very unsure of herself, and feels that her mother is right. Hatsue walks in the woods that afternoon, thinking about all the things that were worrying her. Most of all, she is concerned about Ishmael: she suddenly recognizes that "she concealed her love for Ishmael Chambers not because she was Japanese in her heart but because she could not in truth profess to the world that what she felt for him was love at all." Chapter 14, pg. 206 When she talks with Ishmael about this, he doesn't understand, but keeps insisting that love is the strongest thing in the world. Soon after, however, all the Japanese islanders are required to relocate within eight days. Each family organizes their livelihood in a different way. Most of them ask a white neighbor to take care of their farm (in exchange for the profits) until they get back. Furniture from Japanese houses is kept in huge storage rooms. Some white citizens begin to protest that most of the people being relocated--such as high school students like Hatsue--could not possibly be spies. Hatsue goes to the forest to be with Ishmael one last time. She begins to cry, feeling empty, and does not resist when he undresses her. After the first moment of sex, however, she instantly recognizes that she feels wrong with Ishmael, and that she has never felt right. She can't hurt him by telling him the truth--that she does not want to be with him. She leaves him there in the forest, after having promised to write.
