Farewell To Manzanar By Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

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Farewell to Manzanar contains an autobiographical memoir of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's wartime incarceration at Manzanar, a Japanese-American internment camp. Wakatsuki’s experience is described during their imprisonment and events concerning the family during and after the war. Camp life grew difficult as a result of pro-Japanese riots and forced loyalty oaths. Between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. government forced more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes, farms, schools, jobs and businesses, in violation of their constitutional civil rights and liberties. After the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States entered World War II. During February 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 ordering …show more content…

When the family went to live on Terminal island with Woody, within two weeks, two FBI men arrested George Wakatsuki for supplying oil to a Japanese submarine. The FBI started interrogating Japanese people and also started to search on Terminal Island for material that which are used for spying. The family learned about their father taken into custody by FBI but were not able to locate the place he was taken. The whole family moved to Japanese immigrant ghetto on Terminal island where they started to feel secure with the other Japanese. Within two months the government decided to move Japanese away from Long Beach Naval Station. The US internment camps were overcrowded and provided poor living conditions. People born in America were Americans or Japanese. Americans were suspected spies, arrested and interned in constructed …show more content…

The Japanese response to the decision was gloomy as Manzanar's residents did not had home to go. One of the prejudiced group called No Japs assimilated and Japanese Problem league tried to block Japanese departure on West Coast. Most of the Japanese were terrified to leave the camps but the government demanded to camps to be closed. Most Japanese had problems to reset. As Manzanar was completed, conditions improved, and they became a typical American town, surrounded by a square mile of barbed wire fence. There were schools, churches, clubs, other activities and opportunities to volunteer to