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Summary Of Farewell To Manzanar

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In the story “Farewell to Manzanar” by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Jeanne tells about what happened to her family in the internment camps in the U.S.A. in 1942. With the time between both the time of internment and the time she wrote it, some people believe the memories she helps were altered in some way. Yet, by Jeanne considering other people’s memories while writing the story as well as understanding her own thoughts at the time, Jeanne shows us these memories are truly hers and not altered in some form. While most of the memories are from Jeanne’s own mind, she used insights from the others in her family while writing the story. For example, she wrote small “chapters” from what happened to her brother in Japan and her father’s past as well. To make sure of certain parts of the story, she and her husband had to “rely on a good deal besides [her] own recollections” (x). Recollecting these memories from friends, family and even those she did not know, Jeanne finds a new understanding of what really happened at camp as well as connect her own memories to make …show more content…
“That’s how I remember” (58) she says in sections to show the readers how she remembers things even if others around her had not seen it the same way. She even admits she “never really understood why [they] were there” (158) at the camp, something not many people might have done. In admitting to not knowing why things were happening at the time, she admits to what she truly thought. Had she gone based on what she knows now without comparing it to her past’s thoughts, the story might not only be more of a political story but also less personal. In her memoir, she bases it solely on what she remembers to try and help people understand her past and not use it against the people who had not understood it at the time. She even states in her forward, “this is not a political story”

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