Farewell to Manzanar
Farewell to Manzanar is an autobiography by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston (written with her husband James D. Houston), who was a little girl when she and her family were placed in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. The book begins when Pearl Harbor is bombed. Jeanne is seven years old. Shortly thereafter, Jeanne and her family are moved to Manzanar, where the government has set up camps for Japanese-Americans, who they fear will not be loyal to America. As an adult woman writing this book, Jeanne sees Manzanar as the place where her life began. She describes her life there as a child. As the book progresses and the Wakatsukis leave Manzanar, the authors write about the impact of Manzanar on Jeanne and other members of her family. Throughout the rest of her childhood, Jeanne tries to find herself and understand how to live in the world given her race and heritage. She struggles, torn between living the life of Caucasian teenagers and living up to her father's expectations. She does not find total peace with her own identity until she returns to Manzanar thirty years after she first arrived there. Farewell to Manzanar is not only a story of Jeanne's experience. She also tracks the trials of her family before, during, a
During the book, Woody visits Hiroshima, meets some of the relatives from the Old World, and comes to terms with that part of him that is real but invisible-his Japanese ancestry; ironically, he accepts that which he has fought so hard to overcome. This trait is especially evident on the first day in the mess hall at Manzanar: "The Caucasian servers. The detainees, however, had to re-enter society in total poverty, having lost everything when they were sent into the camp. The woman opts to wait for Mama, so that she does not have to walk to her barracks to return it. The insult to his pride and dignity is nearly unbearable. However, they all share a collective culture, politely shunning the contradictory ideas put forth by other groups (Lie, 73-75). War and paranoia are single-handedly to blame for the sheer existence of Manzanar and the subsequent shame and insecurities that the Wakatsuki family members must face. It would be nice to have a world with more courtesy and individuality! . The injustice of the war and subsequent detainment of Japanese- Americans is also an ever-present and obvious theme of the memoir. They wish to prove to the Americans that they can be trusted by showing a patriotic spirit. The elders, the Issei (those who migrated from Japan around the turn of the century), frequently tell each other in such dismal situations, "Shikata ga nai," meaning "It cannot be helped" (Houston, 12, 71). Arigato gozaimas," meaning "Thank you. The most important is the significance of family heritage. When Jeanne and her family return to the site of the concentration camp 30 years after her internment, she finds a reminder of the internal vulnerabilities of the Japanese people.
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