Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

In Jamie Ford’s historical fiction Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, this split narrative focuses on two eras: 1942 and 1986. Within these era’s, Ford’s novel focuses on a Chinese boy, Henry Lee, and what it was like to grow up in the international district with prejudice everywhere, especially in his own family being a first generation American. His novel tells the story of Henry, as well as a Japanese girl by the name of Keiko. The novel tells the story of these two young friends and the hardships faced when the government sends Keiko and her family away to the Japanese internment camps in the Northwest in the 1940’s. His novel displays the effects

There are many things that happened to Japanese-American immigrants during World War 2 that people in this time period aren’t really familiar with. A story from a Japanese woman, Jeanne Wakatsuki-Houston, who was born and lived in this era, with help from her husband, James D. Houston, explains and sheds some light during the times where internment camps still prevailed. The writing piece titled “Arrival at Manzanar", takes place during her childhood and the Second World War. In the beginning, Jeanne and her family were living a calm and peaceful life in a predominantly white neighborhood, until disaster struck the world and they were forced to move due to escalating tensions between Japanese Orientals and white Americans. At the time, Japanese-Americans, like Jeanne, were forced to live in an internment camp, which is a prison of sorts, due to the war with Japan. The text is being told through a first person point-of-view in which Jeanne herself tells the story through her experiences during the war. In that story, which contains only a part of the original text, much of the setting took place either prior to and during the time she was sent to the internment camps and describes her struggle with it. This story clearly states the importance of family and perseverance which is shown through her use of pathos, definition, and chronological storytelling.

Japanese American families were sent to internment camps located at a desert in Utah almost in less than 24 hours during World War ll. It was supposed to be luxurious and a dream, yet it was the complete opposite. In the book, When the emperor was divine, Julie Otsuka describes each character and their stories through different points of views. She tells their story by recounting each of the main character's emotional experiences while showing the life of Japanese Americans and how they were labeled in others eyes. Otsuka writes not only about the venture of being taken to an internment camp, but how each character changes in the process. Through each person comes a story and why they changed into somewhat the opposite of their

Disregarding the past years spent at an internment camp, the years that disassembled her family into a blur of oblivion, Jeanne chose to familiarize herself with the American way. Although forbidden U.S. citizenship, she made numerous attempts to Americanize herself, opting for such standings as Girl Scout, baton leader, Homecoming Queen. However competent and capable this young woman was, she was repeatedly denied because of her race, her appearance, her Japanese heritage

Roger Daniels’ book Prisoners without Trial is another book that describes the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. This piece discusses about the background that led up to the internment, the internment itself, and what happened afterwards. The internment and relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II was an injustice prompted by political and racial motivations. The author’s purpose of this volume is to discuss the story in light of the redress and reparation legislation enacted in 1988. Even though Daniels gives first hand accounts of the internment of Japanese Americans in his book, the author is lacking adequate citations and provocative quotations. It’s

Throughout Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki and Into the Desert by Nancy Karakane, the characters undergo physical and emotional injustice which shape who they later become. In Farewell to Manzanar we learn about a seven-year old‘s first hand view before during and after camp Manzanar. The Wakatsuki family and Japanese-americans along the west coast were taken from their home and put into relocation camps. In this book we endure her issues in and out of camp and also the injustice that not only does she face, but also many other Japanese-americans.

“Farewell to Manzanar” After the disastrous event of Pearl Harbor, many Japanese families were suspected of contributing to the bombing and betraying the United States. In the book, “Farewell to Manzanar”, the authors, Jeanne Wakatsuki and James Houston, portray damaging influences of WWII and its consequences by discussing Jeanne's life before and after the internment camps. As the internment camps concluded, some rights of the Japanese residents were cut which impacted their lives drastically. When Jeanne revisits Manzanar with her family, she explains how her Papa’s life had ended there, although he lived a few years after coming out of camp.

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.

Among this group of “Nisei” was the Uchida family from Berkeley, California. Yoshiko Uchida, the youngest daughter in the Uchida family was a senior at the University of California at Berkeley at the time of the attacks. Years later, Yoshiko became a prolific writer of children’s books (Sato 66). In her book, “Desert Exile”, published in 1982, Uchida gave a personal account of the evacuation and incarceration of her family during World War II (Sato 66). Uchida’s book raises awareness to the specter of racial prejudice and the hope that no other group of Americans would have to endure this type of injustice and violation of their human rights (Sato 66).

'Even with all the mental anguish and struggle, an elemental instinct bound us to this soil. Here we were born; here we wanted to live. We had tasted of its freedom and learned of its brave hopes for democracy. It was too late, much too late for us to turn back.' (Sone 124). This statement is key to understanding much of the novel, Nisei Daughter, written by Monica Sone. From one perspective, this novel is an autobiographical account of a Japanese American girl and the ways in which she constructed her own self-identity. On the other hand, the novel depicts the distinct differences and tension that formed between the Issei and Nisei generations. Moreover, it can be seen as an attempt to describe the

Wakatsuki-Houston presents an insightful portrayal of the Japanese-American internment camp in California known as Manzanar. She describes how her life changed throughout the experience as she grew from child to young woman. She captivates the reader's attention with intermittent interviews, describing the seemingly constant turmoil that each prisoner faced.

The Japanese-American author, Julie Otsuka, wrote the book When the Emperor was Divine. She shares her relative and all Japanese Americans life story while suffering during World War II, in internment camps. She shares with us how her family lived before, during, and after the war. She also shares how the government took away six years of Japanese-American lives, falsely accusing them of helping the enemy. She explains in great detail their lives during the internment camp, the barbed wired fences, the armed guards, and the harsh temperatures. When they returned home from the war they did not know what to believe anymore. Either the Americans, which imprisoned them falsely, or the emperor who they have been told constantly not to believe, for the past six years imprisoned. Japanese-Americans endured a great setback, because of what they experienced being locked away by their own government.

2. What were the specific challenges Gruenewald and other interned Japanese Americans faced in “camp” life? How did individuals and families adapt to these changes?

The United States of America a nation known for allowing freedom, equality, justice, and most of all a chance for immigrants to attain the American dream. However, that “America” was hardly recognizable during the 1940’s when President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, ordering 120,000 Japanese Americans to be relocated to internment camps. As for the aftermath, little is known beyond the historical documents and stories from those affected. Through John Okada’s novel, No-No Boy, a closer picture of the aftermath of the internment is shown through the events of the protagonist, Ichiro. It provides a more human perspective that is filled with emotions and connections that are unattainable from an ordinary historical document.

After WWII ended in 1945, xenophobia amongst the white populace, coupled with an inflexible definition of who or what represented “American-ness”, prevented Asian Americans from claiming an American identity. Alongside this exclusion, the post-war period also witnessed the assertion of American identity formed by culture and family in the Issei and Nisei community. This essay will argue that through Ichiro Yamada’s struggle to integrate, Okada’s No-No Boy represents the fracturing belief of a monoracial American identity and the cultural instability found within the narrative. John Okada’s No-No Boy adopts an allegoric strategy in order to foreground the attitudes and lives the Issei and Nisei shaped during their internment and sometimes incarceration, which continued after the war. Moreover, as the novel progresses, Okada examines characters such as Ichiro Yamada, who face the cultural conflicts and form the possibility of an “elusive insinuation of promise” of belonging in post-war America (221). Additionally, the racial slurs and violent attacks by other Japanese and non-Japanese Americans that befall him highlight the divisions within American society. A close reading for the free indirect discourse and allegory shows how John Okada uses these literary strategies to suggest the disturbance of American identity.