Farewell To Manzanar
I decided to read, Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston. This book is about the Japanese internment camps that were set up in America during World War II, and how it affected this particular family. It tells the story of the separation of the family members, hardships, and hatred that they had to live with during this time period. It also helps to open our eyes to the irony of the whole situation, and how our government can contradict themselves over some of the issues we were fighting for. The book shows clearly many of the communication issues that arrive in our society; choosing the wrong channel of delivery, misunderstanding, misinterpretation and tone of message. The book tells the story from Jeanne Wakatsuki, the main character, point of view, and how she and her family struggled to make it through this time period in American History.
The book is told from Jeanne’s own experiences in her own town, how her peers at school treated her, and what it was like being uprooted from their home and being put into the Japanese internment camp of Manzanar. The book starts with the news of Pearl Harbor, and the reactions from the Wakatsuki family. It also begins with her father being taken away for supposedly supplying oil to Japanese submarines of the coast while he was fishing. It also goes into some detail on how their neighbors and people throughout their town treated them after the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It helps to kind of shed some light on one particular girl’s point of view, and how she is confused on why people are being so mean to her and her family. The book also goes into some detail on how it felt to be split up from her father and how they felt like prisoners in a country they called home. The book also gives great detail of life in these camps.
This particular book focused only on Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp near Mammoth. It gives good details on their cramped living...