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Biography & Autobiography. Multi-Cultural. Geography. Young Adult Nonfiction. HTML: The powerful true story of life in a Japanese American internment camp. During World War II the community called Manzanar was hastily created in the high mountain desert country of California, east of the Sierras. Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese American internees. One of the first families to arrive was the Wakatsukis, who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with them only the belongings they could carry. For Jeanne Wakatsuki, a seven-year-old child, Manzanar became a way of life in which she struggled and adapted, observed and grew. For her father it was essentially the end of his life. In Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalls life at Manzanar through the eyes of the child she was. She tells of her fear, confusion, and bewilderment as well as the dignity and great resourcefulness of people in oppressive and demeaning circumstances. Jeanne delivers a powerful first-person account that reveals her search for the meaning of Manzanar. Farewell to Manzanar has become a staple of curriculum in schools and on campuses across the country. Named one of the twentieth century's 100 best nonfiction books from west of the Rockies by the San Francisco Chronicle..… (more)
User reviews
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and America and Japan were at war, a problem arose as to what to do with the thousands of naturalised Japanese living in the States. They couldn't be returned to Japan but nor could they be left to live freely within the US. The country's
Conditions improved during their stay; schooling was provided and recreational facilities, classes to keep internees occupied, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts etc.
Eventually, when the whole enterprise was ruled illegal by American legislation, many of the internees did not want to leave. They had heard tales of Japanese "on the outside" receiving abuse from Americans for their country's part in the war, even though many Japanese chose to prove their loyalty by fighting for America in the armed forces.
They had become so conditioned to life in the camps that they could not envisage starting up again elsewhere.
The younger members of Jeanne's family left to make a way for themselves but her parents, herself and her brother stayed until the last moment - when Jeanne's father saved face by leaving with a flourish!
The book is an interesting comment on the effects of this loss of freedom on the Japanese culture, particularly its effect on her father's pride. It's a short little book but says all that is needed within its concise 145 pages.
This is a very engaging story; you do not want to stop reading. This book also has a very historical significance as well. It will open your eyes to injustices that have occurred in the past that you may not have been aware of. It is always very important to learn about these times in our past, so we can better understand them and use them to move forward. Also this is an inspirational book as well. It is encouraging to read of the perseverance that the Japanese Americans had. In reading this book you will feel what Jeanne feels and see what Jeanne sees.
I highly recommend this book for anyone! Especially those who have enjoyed other historical memoirs in the past. This book will give you a better understanding of the pure value of human life.
In seventh grade, I reread it, and was surprised to find that it wasn't a bad book. My favorite part was most
Farewell to Manzanar is honest and brutal about the difficulties of a seven-year-old transitioning through her home to camps in addition to her parents’ attachment to their Japanese culture and heritage. Out of all of this, Houston is resilient to the forced detention and breaks various barriers- cultural and emotional. She defies her father’s wish and is the first person in her family to marry outside of the Japanese community. One of the reason this book will benefit middle schoolers as they learn about the Japanese internment camps is because it depicts the obstacles of a American-born Japanese whose citizenship is to the United States and in the end, overcomes the hardships through a resistant personality.
Egad, is a hook! This is a film, but "Farewell to Manzanar" is a book and what this review is about. It’s a book about Japanese Americans in an internment camp. It starts in 1941, just before the attack on Pearl Harbor, in a fishing community near San Pedro,
Jeanne is a Nisei, which means that she’s the child of Japanese immigrants. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, her father, a fisherman, because that’s what all Japanese people do, is arrested by the FBI. Not long after though, the rest of the family is taken to a Manzanar War Relocation Center.
At the camp Jeanne finds solace in the local nuns a mile from the barracks, while the elder members of the family take up small jobs around the camp. Jeanne succumbs to sun stroke in the hundred degree temperatures of the desert one day and is on bed rest for days. Her dad returns from a North Dakota prison in late 1942, almost a year after his imprisonment.
At his return he is deeply depressed. The other prisoners call him a dog because they assume that he informed on Japan to earn his freedom. He becomes an alcoholic, and almost hits his wife, but is stopped by his youngest son, Kiyo.
An event called ‘The December Riot’ occurs sometime between 1943 and 1944, when three prisoners are arrested for beating a man they consider to be a traitor. It ends with the guards fatally shooting two, and wounding ten others.
The end section of the book details Jeanne’s life and school experience, but it’s incongruous with the rest of the book, so it confused me. It’s something like how she becomes best friends with a white girl, but later on they drift apart and how the teachers plot to stop her from becoming what sounded like homecoming queen, but she wins anyway.
The family goes through a series of ups and downs, but is eventually okay. That’s it. It’s a short book at only 170 pages or so. I thought it only appropriate that a review be short as well. I didn’t really enjoy the book. It feels long and it’s dull, but then again I’m emotionally jaded. There’s not much else that I can say. The book is an autobiography by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, so I guess I could have just read an about the author section and got the same experience, but whatever. She was born in 1934 in Inglewood, California, and she wrote two or three other books that weren’t as popular. The end is nigh.
I particularly liked the father's response to an interrogation about his loyalty, whether it was to Japan or to the US. The examiner asks which nation the father would like to win, and is answered: When your mother and father are having a fight, do you want them to kill each other? Or do you just want them to stop fighting?"
The description attached to this edition is much more true to the book than the one on the back of the book, which is the one attached to the currently most popular edition, so I'm copying it below:
Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp. This is the true story of one spirited Japanese American family's attempt to survive the indignities of forced detention . . . and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the U.S.
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