Farewell to Manzanar
Farewell to Manzanar is the story of Jeanne Wakatusuki, a Japanese girl who spent four years inside a relocation camp, and the mental journey she experienced growing up in that atmosphere. She grew up during those years by combating misunderstandings born from ignorance and racial discrimination after Pearl Harbor was bombed. The treatment she received from her father also helped her mind transfer faster to an adult’s.
Jeanne’s father, Ko, is portrayed as an alcoholic who treated his family shamefully in order to desperately grasp onto his authority and honor. Ko was abusive to his family and almost killed Jeanne’s mother on one occasion. “Inside my own helplessness I cowered, sure he was going to kill her or hurt her very badly, and the way Mama lay there I believed she was actually ready to be beaten to death” (69). This display of hatred and abuse aided in Jeanne seeing the world in a different light than the way children view things.
However, Jeanne’s mother was a caring woman and loved all of her children. Living in Manzanar called for Jeanne to grow up in some respects. Her mother had worked in a station that concentrated on special feeding towards infants and certain illnesses.
On December 5, a rally of Japanese men tried to revolt against the troops holding them in Manzanar, and were shot with machine guns and killed or severely injured. Jeanne could hear the sounds from inside her cabin, and knew what was happening. That helped her age into the woman that she has become today. For a child to be in the realms of a tragedy in the making is mind-altering and impossible for it to be reverted to its previous state.
Since they were forced to live in Manzanar, Jeanne never knew where she truly belonged. Her families country was bombed, and her father was loyal to Japan but considered himself an American citizen. Jeanne possessed no citizenship and had no place to go for true acceptance in the world’s state.
After World War II ended, Jeanne and her family were allowed to leave Manzanar, and were practically shoved out, with no place of residence. After discovering a place to live and a school to attend, she never did feel truly accepted in this country. “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 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). Jeanne realized that she would never feel truly accepted in America, and her mind had developed that early through the experiences she received in Manzanar and her peers. “But now I’d reached an age where certain childhood mysteries begin to make sense. This girl’s guileless remark came as an illumination, an instant knowledge that brought with it the first buds of true shame” (158).
Jeanne Wakatasuki experienced racial discrimination directly caused by World War II and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As a result, she and her family were forced to move to a relocation camp, Manzanar in California. Jeanne was forced to grow up past her age because of the events and treatment she received there and even after she was released. Her father was an abusive and embarrassing alcoholic who relished the past, instead of dealing with the present. Her mother was somewhat distant and working, and had little time to show true affection toward Jeanne. She also lived in the center of a massacre, which killed several Japanese men in Manzanar, whom were brutally murdered with machine guns. Jeanne also felt as if she had lost all sense of citizenship and acceptance within the country she was born in and had always known. All of these events and experiences pushed her to think and act older than she was. Jeanne later states that this was the case when she visits the Manzanar camp years later with her family. “Until this trip I had not been able to admit that my own life really began there” (195). Manzanar transformed a child into an adult and sculpted it into what it is today.
