Farewell To Manzanar Literary Analysis

Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, describes the life of Jeanne and her family during World War II. During this time Jeanne was a young girl who could not comprehend what was occurring in her life. Jeanne and her family were forced to move to Manzanar due to government orders after the bombing of pearl harbor. After the bombing, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order, that relocated all Japanese-Americans to internment camps. In the camps were Jeanne and her family were forced to live, her and her family faced difficult living conditions, conflict with other, riots, cultural conflict and racial issues.

The book Farewell to Manzanar aside from discussing Jeanne’s life, also mentions Jeanne’s family and their experience during, before, and after their time spend in Manzanar. Jeanne explains how difficult her mother’s experience was in Manzanar and how hard her mother had to work. Jeanne mentions her brother’s loyalty to the country, and his leadership crisis. Jeanne also

emphasizes her fathers degradation at the start of the war and his feelings of helplessness. By describing her fathers, breakdown Jeanne demonstrates how her fathers life is ending while hers has just begun. Through Jeanne, the readers are able to see how life was in the camps through an individual who grows up in the camp.Through Jeanne’s father one can see an individual who becomes departed and shattered.

Jeanne demonstrates a significant struggle with her American and Japanese identity throughout her path into adulthood.

The way in which Jeanne refers to the environment that surrounds her shows how she identifies with American culture much more than with her Japanese culture. Jeanne considers herself an American, and cannot relate herself with Japanese her culture. Even though Jeanne attempts to connect with her Japanese customs, she prefers to spend her time doing non-Japanese activities.

Jeanne’s difficult life, makes one realize how grateful we should be to live in a society filled with many privileges. Not every place in this world allows for individuals to have many of the privileges we take for granted here in the United States. What we take for granted in our society today is something we should be thankful for, because our country has grown into a better society when compared to how it was eighty years

ago.

Through this book, one can also see how unfair Japanese individuals were treated. One should not classify the whole race based on the bad actions of a few. This misjudgment towards the Japanese race in this book, can closely relate to the misjudgments against Arab society today. Again, one cannot assume the entire race is the same simply because a few decided to do wrong. These misconceptions of people will probably continue being a problem in our society, because people tend to have misconceptions of individuals due to their ethnicity. Unfortunately, people are classified by race and are though to be a certain way, due to the way they look. Not only do we see bad misconceptions when people refer to Arabs, or Japanese people, but also when referring to Mexicans, and African Americans. This has been an issue that is still present today, and affects millions of innocent people. However, it is essential to avoid those misconceptions of an entire race in order to better our society.

Clearly, the book Farewell to Manzanar, explains the difficult life of a Japanese family. Through this family one can see the governments unjust treatment towards the Japanese due to there fear towards Japanese-Americans after the bombing of pearl harbor. Through Jeanne one can also imagine how life for the Japanese must have been after being placed in interment camps.