...The bombing of Pearl Harbor transformed the lives of virtually every single person of Japanese descent living in America. No matter how much they tried, they could only wait for their final destination: a crowded and subpar American concentration camp that gave very minimal wages and barely had enough resources to live. They met this with the common phrase shikata ga nai, or “it cannot be helped”. Between the life of Jeanne Wakatsuki depicted in the book Farewell to Manzanar, who was in one of these concentration camps, and a boy in an average household in times without world wars raging on, there are, expectedly, many more differences, both emotional and physical, than the similarities, between our lives. There are several differences between...
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...We go through our lives not really thinking about the other people around us. Unless you were changed by injustice and prejudice. These two factors can really change our outlook on life. Like what happened to Jeanne Wakatsuki in Farewell to Manzanar. Jeanne had a pretty good childhood aside from the occasional racist comment, but that all changed when the main American naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked by the Japanese. Most and if not all of the West Coast Japanese-Americans were the victims of prejudice and discrimination. They were spat at, contradistinguished, and some even suffered physical and verbal abuse during and after World War ll. Jeanne describes “The stories, the murmurs, the headlines of the last few months had imprinted in my mind the word...
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...Jeanne Wakatsuki, along with her husband James D. Houston, narrate the experiences that Wakatsuki and her family underwent when they were evacuated into an internment camp called Manzanar. In the section that was cited, the authors described the living conditions at the camp and how Wakatsuki’s family coped with sharing the space with each other as well as strangers. The intended audience for the book includes those interested in the lives of Japanese-Americans that were forced into internment camps while the United States fought Japan in World War II. Due to the fact the book is written by someone who personally experienced life at an internment camp, details about daily living, such as the fact they were issued, “steel army cots, two brown army blankets each, and some mattress covers,” are plentiful throughout the book. Such details hold the attention of those that wish to know more about what it was like to live in Manzanar. The authors’ purpose for writing the book is to share the life-changing and often arduous experiences that Wakatsuki, her family, and the other families who were sent to internment camps withstood. They wrote, “All they had to use for room dividers were those army blankets…they argued about noise at night—the parents wanted their boys asleep by 9:00 p.m.” Despite being taken away from their homes and being forced...
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...In Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Houston she talks about her life in the camps and she goes into the reasoning behind the government’s decision to put the Japanese into internment camps. After Pearl Harbor the citizens of the United States were shocked and fearful because this was the first attack on American soil. The government’s plan of action was to contain the “problem” and put the Japanese in a place where they cannot hurt anyone. The problem with this is that the Japanese in American were not the ones harming American. President Roosevelt had over reacted when he put his order. In this book it shows that the internment camps were not justifiable by any means because it was not fair and infringed the rights of the Japanese citizens and it also, had a bad effect on the social behaviors toward Japanese Americans....
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...Farewell to Manzanar (2002) is a book written by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and her husband, James D. Houston. Being first published in 1973, the book describes an experience of Japanese Americans throughout their imprisonment at the Manzanar Camp, created due to the United States government’s policy during World War II. According to the chapter “Chronology”, included at the beginning of the book, the Manzanar Camp, in Owens Valley, California, existed almost 5 years, from March 25, 1942, till November 21, 1945, when the camp was officially closed. Through the discussion of the events that took place before and after the imprisonment, Houston tries to analyze the ambivalence of the conditions she and her family were placed in. Nowadays, there...
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...the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii according to Executive Order 9066 by President Roosevelt: ordering Japanese-Americans to evacuate their homes and engage in residence in internment camps. Farewell to Manzanar is an autobiographical memoir that extents a large portion of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s wartime interned at Manzanar, the author. Although there were a lot of obstacles like living in cramped conditions, badly prepared food, etc.; Mama was still remained...
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...1. What do you see as the author’s overall purpose in Farewell to Manzanar? The author’s overall purpose of Farewell to Manzanar was to explain that during World War II a place called Manzanar was hastily created in the high mountain desert country of California, east of the Sierras. Manzanar is most widely known as the site of one of ten camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese American internees. One of the first families to arrive was the Wakatsukis, who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with them only the belongings they could carry. For Jeanne Wakatsuki, a seven-year-old child, Manzanar became a way of life in which she struggled and adapted, observed and grew. For her father it was essentially the end of his life. At age thirty-seven, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalls life at Manzanar through the eyes of the child she was. She tells of her fear, confusion, and bewilderment as well as the dignity and great resourcefulness of people in oppressive and demeaning circumstances. In April 1972, Jeanne and her family visited the ruins of Manzanar. She went because she wanted to find closure. Prior to her visit, she had doubts. She thought she imagined the whole thing because no one really heard or talked about it. She seldom talked about her experience with her family and friends. I suppose she wrote the book to educate us readers a time in United States...
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...“What Is Pearl Harbor?” In chapter one of Farewell to Manzanar, we are introduced to the narrator, Jeanne, and her family, Papa, Mama, and Jeanne’s two older brothers, Bill and Woody. This book starts out on a Sunday in December of 1941 and focuses mostly on Papa who was born in Japan but moved to Santa Monica, CA. Papa was a fisherman and Bill and Woody were crewmembers on his ship. On that Sunday in December, they went on a fishing trip but returned very quickly, which was unusual. Then, everyone out on the dock, including Mama and Jeanne heard someone shouting that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor. That night when Papa returned, he burned everything he owned that suggested that he still had a connection to Japan. However, this did him no good. The FBI were out to get the Japanese living in California, especially people like Papa with a fishing license. Sure enough, two weeks later Papa was arrested by the FBI for delivering oil to Japanese submarines. His family didn’t see him for a whole year. 2. Shikata Ga Nai This chapter focuses on Jeanne and her family, after Papa is arrested. Shortly after the arrest, Mama moves the family the Terminal Island, where Jeanne’s older brother Woody was living. Mama felt more comfortable on Terminal Island because there were many other Japanese immigrants living there....
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