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Farewell To Manzanar Book Report

588 Words3 Pages

Ricky Mendoza
History 1302-3A1
Ms. Celeste
October 24, 2017
Manzanar Book Critique
“The name Manzanar meant nothing to us when we left Boyle Heights. We went because the government ordered us to”(15). The book Farewell to Manzanar has received the prestigious Humanitas Prize. The author of the book, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, has also written essays and short stories that were collected to help contribute in Beyond Manzanar: Views of Asian American Womanhood. Farewell to Manzanar is a non-fiction book written by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston. The book is a powerful true story of Jeanne and her family’s life before, during, and after being inside a Japanese American internment camp. Most of the setting in this book takes place during World War Ⅱ. Jeanne tells of her and her family’s hardships and struggles in adjusting their life in cramped barracks, and searching for purpose in the internment camp.
Jeanne, being the narrator and author of this book, took an unemotional and observational take to describe her events in this book because she wanted to keep the factual accounts separate from her emotions and to show people the impact of Pearl Harbor had on …show more content…

“I smiled and sat down, suddenly aware of what being of Japanese ancestry was going to be like. I wouldn’t be faced with physical attack, or with overt shows of hatred”(141). In saying this phrase Jeanne finally realizes what prejudice really is and that hatred isn’t what she imagined it to be. It is more subtle in everyday interactions. She also makes a self-discovery about herself and how the camp really affected her life by being somewhat in her identity the next time she visits Manzanar with her children. “Until this trip I had not been able to admit that my own life really began

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