Chapters 15, 16 and 17 Summary

It is the summer of 1942 when Naomi, Stephen and Aunt Obasan leave Vancouver via train to their exiled destination of Slocan. Stephen's leg is in a cast because an old injury had not healed properly and needed to be re-set. This impediment adds to Stephen's insolence and silent rebellion against being uprooted from his home. Aunt Obasan is too immersed in the Japanese tradition of submission and Naomi is still too young to understand the events, which take her away from her home and her sense of security.

Even in their own distress, Aunt Obasan and another woman on the train give up some food and a petticoat to a young mother weeping in the same train car. Apparently, the child had just been born prematurely and the woman had been ushered off to the exiting train with no food or...