Imagine living in a country that you truly love and then being discriminated and questioned just because of your race. How insulted would you feel if your own country’s government interrogated and accused you of being disloyal? Nowadays, loyalty is an important quality that everyone wants to possess, so many people do whatever is possible in order to prove themselves. Loyalty shows a lot about a person’s character and their motives; it is truly a reflection of what type of person we are. In Farewell to Manzanar written by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston she talks about the experience that she had while living in an internment camp and how it really affected her and the way her family lived. The internment camp caused many problems for the Wakatsuki …show more content…
Jeanne goes into detail and states, “I was striving to be Miss America of 1947, he [her father] was wishing I’d be Miss Hiroshima of 1904” (Wakatsuki 164). This alone, shows how Jeanne was being disloyal to her Japanese side because she was siding herself with the “American” side, the side that had previously betrayed her. She wanted to represent the Americans, not the Japanese. At least, that is how her father saw it. Jeanne was disloyal to her Japanese side because she completely abandoned their traditions, in order to “Americanize” herself. She was not presenting herself like the typical Japanese woman; she wore short skirts and smiled a lot. Her father was not proud of the way she was turning out to be, so he brought those points up to her. When Jeanne was running to be queen at her school, her father was very angry. Jeanne describes how her father said that all the males nominated her because she wore short skirts and that she should start to be more modest. At this point, Jeanne’s father Ko must have realized that Jeanne was abandoning her Japanese roots because he brought up a point. He told her “You can be the queen if you start Odori lessons at the Buddhist church” (Wakatsuki 178). Eventually, Jeanne was no longer able to take lessons because she kept smiling during her performances and in Japan it was not socially accepted for people to smile while performing. Jeanne was being disloyal to her Japanese side because she was not doing anything to conserve it. If she truly cared and embraced her Japanese side, she would have at least put in the effort to not smile during her Odori lessons. Jeanne was confused and stuck between two cultures but she ended up being disloyal to one by completely abandoning it and not meeting any of its
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.
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.
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
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.
There are several examples of change in Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's Farewell to Manzanar. Some examples are positive/negative and linked to time. One instance of a positive/negative change is going to Manzanar. Manzanar was a positive change because “...in the case of my older brothers and sisters, we went with a certain amount of relief. They had all heard stories of Japanese homes being attacked, of beatings in the streets of California towns” (Houston 17). It was a negative change because “ ‘Woody, we can’t live like this. Animals live like this.’ “ (Houston 26).
They’re afraid of what some of the parents might say”(124). This demonstrates how Jeanne’s teachers are trying to stuff the ballot box to prevent her from winning because she is Japanese. They believe that just because she is from a Japanese descent, she does not deserve to become the queen or to be represented as a major person in front of many people. This is one of the many consequences of WWII. Towards the end of the book Jeanne recalls a secret she told no one about how a old, and bitter woman passes a rude comment about the Japanese residents and spits and leaves.
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.
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.
According to the novel Farewell to Manzanar, “I smiled and sat down, suddenly aware of what being of Japanese ancestry was going to be like. I wouldn’t be faced with physical attack, or with overt shows of hatred. Rather, I would be seen as someone foreign, or as someone other than American, or perhaps not be seen at all” (158). After the bombing at Pearl Harbor, the government saw all Japanese-Americans as enemies even though most, if not all of them, had done nothing wrong. They were taken from their homes and send to awful internment camps where they were treated as prisoners. The Japanese-Americans stayed in the camps four years, just because of where they come from. During this time Americans completely turned against the Japanese people living in their country and bombarded the news with anti-Japanese propaganda which showed how much racial discrimination there was, even back in the 1940s. While Farewell to Manzanar explores this concept, there are many questions in which the reader is left with. First, the Japanese-American Internment was fueled by more than war time panic, which reveals the question: what role did prejudice play in the Japanese-American Relocation? Then, there is the question: what modern day connections can you make with this time in American history? Lastly, this story leaves the reader with the question: do you think something like this could happen today? Farewell to Manzanar gives a glimpse of the lives of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s and
Oppression, defined as, “unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power” (merriam-webster.com) and prejudice, defined as, “injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one's rights” (merriam-webster.com), both actions that have changed people. Some people are changed for the worse and some are changed for the better, but some choose to share their story. Two people named Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and Elie Wiesel did this, they shared their story with the whole world. They both did this by writing autobiographical memoirs, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston wrote Farewell to Manzanar alongside her husband and Elie Wiesel wrote Night, both sharing their experiences during well known events that have happened in the world today. Even though the stories have taken place at different places and different times, the people involved in these event experienced the same things. This does not mean that they were affected in the same way, they were affected differently in their own ways.
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
“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.
officials eventually began to recruit these internees into the American army. Not only was WWII a war about political alliances and geographical sovereignty, but it was also a war about race and racial superiority throughout the world. Propagating this idea, Dower (1986) argues, “World War Two contributed immeasurably not only to a sharpened awareness of racism within the United States, but also to more radical demands and militant tactics on the part of the victims of discrimination” (War Without Mercy: p.5). In elucidating the racial motivations and fallout from WWII, Dower helps one realize the critical role that race and racial politics played during the war and are still at play in our contemporary world. An analysis of this internment process reveals how the ultimate goal of the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans and the United States’ subsequent occupation of Japan was to essentially “brainwash” the Japanese race into demonstrating allegiance to America.
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.
In internment camps cultural integrity was a problem. The Issei, or first generation Japanese who were older, were used to being very well honored and respected by the younger generation. In internment camps, age had no value. To a white soldier, a Japanese man was a “Japo” and nothing more. In traditional Japanese culture, the elderly were very highly respected. However, at the camps their “traditional authority” was stripped away and this “contributed to the demoralization of the Issei” (62