Minnow is the first character the reader meets. He is also one of the youngest protagonists, thus presenting, over the course of the narrative, a unique case of youth unjustly forced into rapid maturity. When the novel opens, Minnow is too young to be angered by the neighborhood changes in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack; he is only confused. As an artist, he cannot understand the anti-Japanese caricatures that pop up around town, but he knows that these degrading misrepresentations reveal how the Caucasians, or ketos, see him and his friends. It offends him.

Minnow resents his older brothers because he feels they are controlling. However, when Minnow is attacked by a group of Caucasian boys, he briefly sees the fear in his brother Mas’s eyes. Afterward, Minnow realizes how dangerous things have become, and he must suddenly mature. While many American boys his age feel the ill effects of the war, Minnow feels his community are personally attacked—and they are. Fear changes behavior, and, historically, anti-Asian sentiments were rising in the United States for decades before the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, Pearl Harbor pushed things over the edge, and national racism become so overwhelming that the government indiscriminately imprisoned all people of Japanese descent on the West Coast.