Effects Of Moving To Manzanar

In 1942, the United States government forced more than 110,000 Japanese Americans to leave their homes and held them in military-style camps. A lot of the Japanese were falsely imprisoned, faced racism, and they were forcefully relocated to internment camps. The Manzanar Relocation Center was one of ten camps where they were required to live during World War II. Japanese Americans were grouped together and many were seen as being enemies of the United States. In the excerpt "Arrival to Manzanar," Huston and Huston paint a vivid picture of how the Wakatsuki family along with many other families faced degradation shortly after the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

The excerpt begins with the arrest of Jeanne’s father (Papa.) The FBI accused Papa

Roughly a month later, the government then ordered Jeanne and her family to an internment camp known as Manzanar. “They had no clue where this place was or what it was for that matter. However, this came almost to a relief to them because they had heard stories of Japanese homes being attacked and beatings in the streets of California towns.” (Huston and Huston 684). Japanese people had become just as terrified of Caucasians as Caucasians were to the Japanese. At the time the families got the impression that they would be moving to a safe place protected by the government. Little did they know, they would be saying in what was more like a prison. Through out the excerpt one gets a feeling that only worse is to come for these families. Jeanne really has done a respectable job portraying the feeling through a child eyes. They way the story is told; she doesn’t really get affected by being uprooted. While the adults are experiencing pain and stress, this shows that the children were somewhat oblivious to the sorrow and at times were excited because it was all one big

Also, there is a since of disgust that these people were treated inadequately. In "Arrival to Manzanar," the Japanese Americans survive people who are discriminatory, discourteous, and judgmental. Even though this caused considerable pain they still came out with their heads held high. One prays that by telling stories like these we as a society can learn from the past and rise above our faults to prevent this happening in the future. Huston and Huston done a wonderful job showing the readers that many Japanese American families faced degradation shortly after the attacks on Pearl