Theme Of Farewell To Manzanar

In the book, Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and J.D. Houston, provides a coming of age story set in WW2 America. The central idea of the story is how Jeanne and Papa deal with their conflicting American and Japanese cultures while still staying true to their own morals. For some background, Jeanne is the youngest of the Wakatsuki family and a first-generation American. She battles with her national and ethnic cultures throughout the story and takes different angles on the subject as she matures. Papa too struggles with his culture, though he moreso finds himself to be incompatible with Japanese culture as will be further explained in the body paragraphs. This essay will evaluate how conflict with Jeanne and Papa’s culture

She grew up in a Caucasian neighborhood with the only Asian people she knows being her family. Later when her father is taken by the FBI she is forced to move to an entirely Asian neighborhood and we learn she has a genuine fear of Asian people. This is significant as this initial case of Xenophobia sets the backdrop for her uneasiness with Japanese culture. By the time she moves to the internment camp she has a grasp of both cultures and is faced with the start of her main struggle between these two cultures. This is evidenced by the two main activities she participated in at Manzanar, Baton Spinning and Japanese Dance. She tries both these activities yet is ultimately rejected and is still faced with the issue of what culture she wants to assimilate too. This implies early signs of her failure which is what she ultimately ends up being. This “cultural failure” is a consistent theme throughout the book through the multiple times she tries to conform to either culture. In the climax of the story she admits this is a monologue, she talks about how trying to become socially accepted in both cultures shaped her to be a failure in either. After that we see a time skip where she has come to accept that it isn’t a decision of what culture she needs to be in, rather a tool to shape her ideologies and self-image. This presupposes that culture shaped her not just to be