Injustice In Farewell To Manzanar And James D. Houston

People need to speak out against injustices in order to prevent morally corrupt individuals from abusing their power to oppress others, which can result in a society without freedom, safety, or humanity.

In the story of Japanese imprisonment, Farewell to Manzanar, readers follow a young American girl, Jeanne, as she grows up in an internment camp during World War II. Despite being American, Jeanne and other people of Japanese descent are continually attacked due to the racism bred by the American government. They attack her and these people in a variety of forms such as isolation, disrespect, and avoidance.

Fighting a war against the oppression and persecution of a people, how hypocritical of the American government to harass and punish those based on their heritage. Magnifying the already existing dilemma of discrimination, the bombing of Pearl Harbor introduced Japanese-Americans to the harsh and unjust treatment they were forced to confront for a lifetime to come. Wakatsuki Ko, after thirty-five years of residence in the United States, was still prevented by law from becoming an American citizen.

The Manzanar internment camps were very inconvinient for the Japanese- American citizens as the attack on Pearl Harbor was very inconvinient for the U.S. Military. In the end, both fought through the tough times and came out more determined to make things right. I say this because according to the excerpt above, "Of the hundreds of men wounded in the attack, only 10 percent stayed in their hospital beds more than a day. The rest went almost immediately back to their duties." This shows that the Military was very determined to fight for their country and wouldn't let their wounds stop them. This is the quite similar for the Japanese- Americans that were forced to go to camps around the U.S. because the Americans were scared that they would turn against the U.S. during the war against the Japanese. When the Japanese- Americans had the chance to get out of the crowded camps, they went on with their lives, some with schooling, going back to make buisnesses, etc. This shows how the Japanese- Americans still had hope for their country and didn't give up on it because they were treated wrong.

Farewell to Manzanar is a collection of all of Jeanne Wakatsuki’s memories at Manzanar, an internment camp designed for Japanese immigrants. During World War II, the Japanese-Americans were relocated in Manzanar; the reason behind the relocation was due to them being accused of being threats to national security. I believe that the following paragraph is able to capture the struggle the author and the other residents of Manzanar faced in the journey home.

War can be loud and visible or quiet and remote. It affects the individual and entire societies, the soldier, and the civilian. Both U.S. prisoners of war in Japan and Japanese-American citizens in the United States during WWII undergo efforts to make them “invisible.” Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken hero, Louie Zamperini, like so many other POWs, is imprisoned, beaten, and denied basic human rights in POW camps throughout Japan. Miné Okubo, a U.S. citizen by birth, is removed from society and interned in a “protective custody” camp for Japanese-American citizens. She is one of the many Japanese-Americans who were interned for the duration of the war. Louie Zamperini, as a POW in Japan, and Miné Okubo, as a Japanese-American Internee both experience efforts to make them “invisible” through dehumanization and isolation in the camps of WWII, and both resist these efforts.

The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese led to the entry of the United States in the World War II. While the war was going on, the United States decided to put Japanese into camps an effort to get rid of Japanese spies and make sure that nobody had contact with Japan. In Farewell to Manzanar, an autobiography written by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, the author shares her experience at camp Manzanar in Ohio Valley, California during the 1940s. The book was published in 1973, about 31 years after Wakatsuki left camp Manzanar.

In many times throughout history groups of people have been discriminated against based on race or religion. These people receive inferior rights because of the discrimination. In some cases they do not get citizenship, in others they are segregated from others, and physically harmed. Two groups of people that faced discrimination near World War II (WWII) were the Jewish people and Japanese Americans. Both groups faced very different types of discrimination by different oppressors with different motives yet their treatment was very similar and many events paralleled each other. The treatment of Japanese in WWII internment camps was as harsh as the Holocaust's treatment of the Jewish people.

In the novel Farewell to Manzanar, the author Jeanne Watatsuki Houston and James D Houston, they try to convey the theme prejudice. Throughout the novel the Japanese have to face the struggle of being the outgroup. “What had they charged him with? We didn't know that either, until an article appeared the next day in Santa Monica paper, saying he had been arrested for delivering oil to Japanese submarines offshore”(Houston 8). This shows prejudice against the Japanese because Papa has had this job for a while, and they didn't have any problems with it before. They just now start showing prejudice against a the Japanese because of the Pearl Harbor attacks, and are treating the Japanese unfairly. The author also conveys the theme prejudice against

How do you think you would have handled being a Japanese living in America during World War Two? I would guess not too well, being taken from your home, put into camps, and you were treated like you were less than the rest of the Americans. Even though a lot of the Japanese living in America during this time had done nothing to support Japan, this still happened to them. It happened to Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, and she tells about it in her book, Farewell to Manzanar. It wasn’t fair, America had other enemies during that time but only the Japanese were sent to camps for that time. The Japanese-American Internment was fueled by more than war time panic. What role did prejudice play in the Japanese-American Relocation? Are there modern day

Farewell to Manzanar is sociologist and writer Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's first hand account of her interment in the Japanese camps during World War II. Growing up in southern California, she was the youngest of ten children living in a middle-to lower class, but comfortable life style with her large family. In the beginning of her story, she told about how her family was close, but how they drifted apart during and after their internment in the camp. The ironic part of it is that her family spent their entire time together in the same camp. So why did her family drift apart so? What was once the center of the family scene; dinner became concealed with the harsh realities of the camp. This reflects the loss

“The name Manzanar meant nothing to us when we left Boyle Heights. We didn’t know where it was or what is was. We went because the government ordered us to” (12-13). In the book, Farewell to Manzanar, this is the situation that Jeanne Wakatsuki and her family are thrown into during World War II. Her family is Japanese, meaning that her family and all other people of Japanese descent living in the United States were seen as enemies during that time. This was all because of the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In 1942, the Japanese were forced to move away from their homes and into internment camps like Manzanar, but the internment of the Japanese-Americans was not only from war time panic. First, prejudice played a huge role in the Japanese-American Relocation because only the Japanese were relocated when the Germans and Italians were also their enemies. Second, a modern day connection with that time in American history is all the tensions today in the Middle East. Lastly, something like the Japanese-American relocation could happen today because of Donald Trump wanting to deport Mexicans that immigrated illegally.

The internment of Japanese Americans is often a part of history rarely mention in our society. One of these internment camps was Manzanar—a hastily built community in the high desert mountains of California. The sole purpose of Manzanar was to house thousands of Japanese Americans who were held captive by their own country. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston was interned at Manzanar when she was seven years old with her family. Their only crime was being of Japanese descent. In her memoir, “Farewell to Manzanar,” Mrs. Wakatsuki Houston transcribes a powerful, heart breaking account of her childhood memories and her personal meaning of Manzanar.

Shortly after the United States entered into war with Japan, the federal government initiated a policy whereby 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were rounded up and herded into camps, 2/3 of these people were actually United States citizens. They were incarcerated without indictment, trial, or counsel - not because they had committed a crime, but simply because they resembled the enemy. These were similar to concentration camps that the Germans were using for the Jews, though no one was being killed and Japanese Americans were allowed to work within the camps. Not many Americans knew about the camps at that time, and some still don't know today. Like discussed in class, it was an embarrassing moment for this country. The book that was assigned in class, Desert Exile by Yoshiko Uchida, told the story of a family who lived through these horrible times. As we discussed in class

For instance, the movie The Wave can exemplify the unjust threatening of one as a threat to all. Lauree, a student, wrote an article in her school newspaper protesting The