Have you ever you were trapped and that you lost everything? This is what happened to many Japanese during WWII. In Farewell To Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston, this story tells a tale of young Jeanne and her family who go to Camp Manzanar in Southern California. It describes the struggles of living at Manzanar and how it dramatically changed their lives and the other internees. This book delineates how the Japanese-Americans lived with fear, confusion and how the camp conditions were rough. These feelings eventually led the Japanese-Americans to lose their livelihoods and become helpless.
Jeanne and her family arrive with a dusty welcome. After losing everything (with Papa’s arrest), they were sent to a “Camp”. From that moment on, Jeanne and her family knew that their lives would be changed. Jeanne said,“The bus was being pelted by what sounded like splattering rain. It wasn’t rain. This was my first look at something I would soon know very well, a billowing flurry of dust and sand churned up
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It was a cold morning. There was sand on the floor. Jeanne explains: “The simple truth is the camp was no more ready for us when we got there than we were ready for it. We only have the dimmest ideas of what to expect” (20). The way the barracks were built is very unstable; they were hammered together and a very weak foundation. The camp was built as soon as they announced it and was complete in two days. The barracks set-up was basic and made out of wood and windows with 1 door. It was a 20 by 25 living space, to fit about 20-25 people. The amount of space was so small, it was the average living room size. The camp was meant to portray that it was a “relocation centre”. However, the “relocation centre” idea was more of a prison which is how Jeanne’s family saw the camp as. This was hell as most Japanese-Americans called this