Summary

Chapter XVI “Home” is told from Minnow’s perspective, now 17 February - March 1945. The page before the chapter starts is a black and white picture of a wall where the lyric “Show me the way to go home” is written (346). Chee cites the picture as “Graffiti, Tule Lake Segregation Center, California” (346). The chapter begins as Minnow wakes up in a Buddhist church gymnasium, after spending his first night back in San Francisco in three years. He pulls up his sketchbooks - he has filled four of them since 1942. He looks through his pictures, and thinks about if he drew a self-portrait how he would be “sanded down to the bones” with his friends as his organs (348). He thinks he hopes it is all a dream, that he will walk out and Tommy will have a new record to play; he will hear Yum-yum...