How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"It's all right," Manjiro said. "You and me, we family now."
Captain Whitfield's dark look blew away like a squall's black clouds. He smiled. "That's exactly right," he said. "We've got each other now. We may have had our sails knocked back, but only for a moment, for there's Mr. and Mrs. Aken's house—you know their son Isaachar, who you called Itchy. Why, and there's Eben himself."
A man had come out on the stoop of the house. He looked their way and shouted, "Is that my good friend William Whitfield sitting there looking so forlorn? Please come out of the damp and the cold. There's supper and a bed here!" (3.15.42-44)
The captain and Manjiro have just returned to the captain's house in Fairhaven, and the house looks completely abandoned. Ugh. What's neat is how familial the captain's neighbor is, though. Family is super-important, but family is also what (or who) you decide to define it as.
Quote #8
"I used to be afraid of blue eyes," Manjiro whispered to William. "But how could anyone be afraid of you?"
The baby gazed up at him, his face like a polished jewel.
"Someday, when you are grown, you will come and visit me in Japan," Manjiro said. "You will be the captain of a big, three-masted barque and you will sail proudly into Urado Bay. You will walk the road to my home and no one will run away, afraid you are a devil. Everyone will greet you as my brother." (3.23.10-12)
Leave it to a baby to make everything better. They're like little tiny blank slates. What's more telling here, though, is how Manjiro still sees himself in Japan in the future and apart from his adopted American family.
Quote #9
He longed for Mrs. Whitfield's warm, fresh-baked bread and thick jam. He yearned to hear William Henry's happy babble and to be able to chat with Captain Whitfield again. At the same time, he began to be homesick for Japan: He missed the foods of his old country; he missed his mother; he even found himself missing things he didn't think he liked! He felt torn about where, exactly, he wanted to be. He just knew it wasn't Mr. Hussey's! (3.25.1)
Nothing makes you more aware of whom you love and who you count as family than being at a place you don't want to be.