Farewell To Manzanar Analysis

“I had nearly outgrown the shame and the guilt and the sense of unworthiness. This visit, this pilgrimage, made comprehensible, finally, the traces that remained and would always remain, like a needle.” The text Farewell To Manzanar, written by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, illustrates Jeanne’s experience while being placed in an internment camp. Jeanne’s family was faced with multiple challenges through the process of being evacuated from their home to living in an internment camp. Throughout the text, Jeanne also explains how her life was difficult compared to how she believed non-Japanese lived in America. Though the American Government was afraid that Japanese Americans potential saboteurs, they were not justified for interning them because it was not fair to blame a whole society on a small portion action’s, the families were not provided with the proper care and attention, and the Japanese-American children were faced with racism that they may have not been able to handle. After the Pearl Harbor attack, the whole Japanese-American group now had to face the consequence when they didn’t partake in the crime. In the text, Jeanne states, “To the FBI every radio owner was a

Almost all Japanese Americans were punished and held accountable for the actions of a small group. Many of the camps didn’t provide the proper care for the families they were holding, when they could have remained home living their normal life. Lastly, many Japanese Americans were forced to accept racism as the ‘new norm’ which is inhumane. Imprisoning thousands of Japanese and disciplining them for the actions of a small group, is inappropriate and unfair. Due to the internment camps, many family members were lost and many families were torn apart. There was absolutely no justification in the American Government taking away the Japanese’s civil rights and flipping their whole lives