Fairwell To Manzanar Character Analysis

On an ordinary Sunday in the beginning of December of 1941, the Japanese wreaked havoc across the United States. The American naval base of Pearl Harbor had been bombed and World War Two began. Simultaneously, internment camps were formed in the United States where the Japanese were held, while at the same time, prisoner camps were formed in Japan where American soldiers were held captive. In relation to the tremendous post war effects, the two main characters in Fairwell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand experienced the unimaginable in these camps leaving both of them with a changed mentality. At the time of war, Jeanne Wakatsuki was only a young child living in the small fishing

Over the course of years spent there, they became rather used to the conditions they lived in. They were fed appropriately, given a place to sleep, and treated humanely as possible. They were also given the opportunity of an education through a variety of academics brought to the camp. When the wartime was over and the Japanese were allowed back into everyday life, they weren’t treated as humans. They were looked down upon and treated as if they didn’t serve a purpose as every other citizen does. The children didn’t understand what was going on, and they began requesting to move back. In Fairwell to Manzanar, Jeanne explains how she first began to realize how life would be after the war stating, “I wouldn’t be faced with physical attack, or with overt shows of hatred. Rather, I would be seen as someone foreign, or as someone other than America, or perhaps not be seen at all” (Wakatsuki Houston and Houston 158). The internment camps felt like home to them after so many years, and they felt almost foreign to the rest of the United States. On the other hand in Louis’ case, the internment camps weren’t favorable. The conditions were brutal, and they were expected to be treated as prisoners. They were rarely fed, slept on the bare floor, and were treated less than a human. They were ordered to work every single day unless told otherwise. If you chose not to follow these orders, you would be executed. Mutsushiro Watanabe was the corporal in charge of the prisoner camp, and he and other Japanese guards was prone to brutally beating Louis and other POWs. Louis seemed to get the absolute worst of Watanabe’s wrath. The conditions for the POWs weren’t conditions that they would have wanted to come back to, so when it came time for the war to be over, they were filled with complete joy to be able to go back to their