Farewell To Manzanar By Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

The memoir, “Farewell to Manzanar” by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, follow the life of the Wakatsuki family in Manzanar, going into depth how their new lives within the camps had a grave effect, altering the family dynamic of not only their family, but also that of all the internees. From the beginning, the authors open by portraying the sense of fear that swept across the Japanese community after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They describe how Jeanne’s father, who although at the time of pre-war had been living the “American dream”, owning his own business, and having his children to help him on his two boats, now feared for his freedom, burning the Japanese flag, as well as, anything else that could tie him back to his country

Jeanne explains how after they relocated to the Japanese immigrant ghetto that her and her siblings had to be careful and were constantly picked on by other Japanese children, who constantly made fun of them for not speaking Japanese. This shows how even amongst her own people, Jeanne felt alienated, since she had been raised in an English speaking, Caucasian neighborhood. In chapter two, is when we see the attitude towards the Japanese turn into hostility and fear, and three months after Jeanne’s father is arrested the government orders all Japanese to relocate to Manzanar, California, where each family receives an identification number, and families of twelve are forced to share two rooms, twelve feet in width by twelve feet in length. As time goes by, Jeanne’s mother realizes that “[s]he would quickly subordinate her own desires to those of the family or the community, because she knew

She uses her own family as an example as she says, “[m]y own family, after three years of mess hall living, collapsed as an integrated unit. Whatever dignity or feeling of filial strength we may have known before December 1941 was lost” (Houston & Houston, 37). In chapter eight, we begin to see the down fall of Jeanne’s father, a man who once stood head held high in dignity. After returning to his family, he spends most of his time drinking until “he is blind drunk and passes out…would vomit and then start sipping again” (Houston & Houston, 65-66). Jeanne says how she feels that everything around her is collapsing and how nothing is how is, her father is always drunk and he always abuses her mother. Metaphorically the authors are alluding to the father as the country of Japan, and the mother as the U.S. they are fighting for irrational reason, and then Kiyo who punches his father to stop him from striking his mother represents all the Japanese Americans who are stuck in the middle and just want it all to