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Themes of Farewell to Manzanar

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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Impact of war, struggle for identity and belonging, resilience of the human spirit.

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Farewell to Manzanar

Jeanne wakatsuki houston, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Belonging in America

Farewell to Manzanar ’s protagonist, Jeanne Wakatsuki , chronicles the internment of her Japanese-American family as a result of anti-Japanese hysteria during WWII. Exiled from mainstream American society and viewed with suspicion, Jeanne has to consider what it means to be an American, and she meditates on the different ways that people of her parents’ generations and children of her own generation cultivate a sense of belonging in their chosen country while maintaining their Japanese…

Internment and Family Life

Farewell to Manzanar chronicles the effects of wartime internment on the structure of one Japanese-American family, the Wakatsukis. Especially because they are immigrants in a strange land, family cohesion is an important priority to the Wakatsukis and integral to Jeanne’s conception of her family. In some ways, internment increases the family’s commitment to each other: living in close quarters with scarce resources, the family has to make an extra effort to take care of each…

Shame and Pride

In Farewell to Manzanar , the Wakatsukis cope with the material and psychological effects of internment during World War II. In Jeanne ’s opinion, dignity is one of the most important aspects of Japanese culture, and one of the things she most appreciates in her parents is their commitment to maintaining family pride under even the most dire circumstances. However, this emphasis on pride makes everyone in the family vulnerable to debilitating feelings of shame…

Racism and Prejudice

Farewell to Manzanar portrays a Japanese-American family who are interned during World War II as a result of the US government’s racist assumption that Japanese immigrants cannot possibly be loyal to their adopted country. Although Jeanne spends much of her childhood in circumstances directly caused by racism, she doesn’t encounter overt prejudice until she returns to California to attend middle school and high school. Focusing on implicit prejudice rather than open insults, the memoir shows…

Farewell to Manzanar is primarily about the experience of internment, but it’s also a coming-of-age memoir, spanning from Jeanne ’s prewar childhood to her postwar graduation from high school. Although internment is a travesty, for Jeanne personally the experience fosters her natural curiosity and independence. As she describes camp life, she contrasts the growing complexity of her own character with Papa ’s psychological decline. After internment ends, Jeanne both seeks independence from her parents and…

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Farewell to Manzanar : a true story of Japanese American experience during and after the World War II internment

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Farewell to Manzanar: Analysis

Before the camps, Jeanne and her family enjoyed dinner together each night. They laughed and joked with one another, sharing stories of their day. During the camps, though, their dinners were much more somber. The family still ate together, but they spoke little and ate even less. They were all too thin conditions left them weak and frightened. Even after the camps ended and they were back home, Jeanne and her family found that their dinners were never quite the same. The laughter was gone, replaced by a heavy silence that hung over them like a thick fog. “She was a plump woman who laughed easily and cried easily, but I had never seen her cry like this” (Houston & Houston, 2002, p. 13). The happy memories of before the war seemed like distant dreams now; the camps had changed Jeanne and her family forever.

Ansel Adams was a landscape photographer who emphasized the use of light and shadow to create moods and atmospheres in his photographs. He similarly believed very strongly in preserving the natural environment and worked to promote conservationism. Dorothea Lange was a documentary photographer who focused on capturing the human experience during difficult times, such as the Great Depression. She often used her photographs to advocate for social change. Toyo Miyatake was a Japanese-American photographer who was incarcerated in an American internment camp during World War II. He used photography as a way to document life in the camp and preserve the memories of his friends and family. All three photographers were successful in what they were trying to achieve, and their work has been highly praised and recognized by critics and the general public alike.

“Farewell to Manzanar” is a powerful film that tells the true story of Japanese American internment during World War II. The film does an excellent job of depicting everyday life in the camp, as well as how people can still maintain their dignity and hope for the future regardless of the challenges. Before the class, I knew that the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, many were forced from their homes and placed in detention camps simply because they were of Japanese descent. I think that the U.S. government took a long time to offer a formal apology and reparations to the internet because, for many years, the government denied that anything bad had happened.

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Farewell To Manzanar Essays

by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

Farewell to Manzanar Essays Plot Overview

At the morning of December 7, 1941, Jeanne Wakatsuki says farewell to Papa’s sardine fleet at San Pedro Harbor in California. but soon the boats return, and news reaches the own family that the japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Papa burns his jap flag and identity papers however is arrested with the aid of the FBI. Mama moves the family to the japanese ghetto on Terminal Island and then to Boyle Heights in los angeles. President Roosevelt’s govt Order 9066, which he signs in February 1942, offers the military the authority to relocate ability threats to countrywide safety. the ones of jap descent in america can simplest watch for their very last vacation spot: “their common sentiment is shikata ga nai” (“it can't be helped”). One month later, the authorities orders the Wakatsukis to move to Manzanar Relocation middle within the desolate tract 225 miles northeast of la.

Upon arriving in the camp, the japanese americans find cramped living conditions, badly organized meals, unfinished barracks, and swirling dust that blows in via each crack and knothole. There is not enough warm apparel to go round, many humans fall sick from immunizations and poorly preserved meals, and that they have to face the indignity of the nonpartitioned camp bathrooms, an insult that specifically affects Mama. The Wakatsukis forestall eating together inside the camp mess halls, and the own family starts offevolved to fall apart. Jeanne, in reality deserted via her circle of relatives, takes an hobby in the other people in camp and starts reading religious questions with a couple of nuns. however, after Jeanne stories sunstroke while imagining herself as a struggling saint, Papa orders her to forestall.

Papa is arrested and returns a 12 months later. He has been at citadel Lincoln detention camp. The own family is unsure a way to greet him. handiest Jeanne welcomes him brazenly. Jeanne has usually sought after Papa, who left his samurai, or warrior magnificence, own family in Japan to protest the declining social repute of the samurai. She appears again fondly at the fashion with which he has constantly performed himself, from his courting of Mama to his virtuoso pig carving. some thing has came about to Papa, however, at some stage in his time at the detention camp, wherein the government interrogators have accused him of disloyalty and spying. The accusation is an insult and has despatched Papa right into a downward emotional spiral. He becomes violent and beverages heavily, and nearly strikes Mama with his cane earlier than Kiyo, Papa’s youngest son, saves her by way of punching Papa inside the face.

The frustration of the alternative men in camp finally results in an occasion referred to as the December rebellion, which breaks out after 3 guys are arrested for beating a man suspected of helping the U.S. authorities. The rioters roam the camp trying to find inu, a word that means each “dog” and “traitor” in eastern. The military police try to put an cease to the rise up, however in the chaos they shoot into the gang, killing jap and wounding ten others. The equal night time, a patrol group accosts Jeanne’s brother-in-regulation Kaz and his fellow workers and accuses them of sabotage. The mess hall bells ring till midday the next day as a memorial to the dead. quickly after, the government issues a Loyalty Oath to distinguish unswerving eastern from ability enemies. Camp opinion approximately whether to take the oath is divided. Answering “No No” to the loyalty questions will bring about deportation, but answering “yes yes” will result in being drafted. both Papa and Woody, one in all his sons, suggest the “yes yes” role, and Papa attacks a person for calling him an inu, or collaborator. That night time, Jeanne overhears Papa singing the japanese country wide anthem, Kimi ga yo, which speaks of the patience of stones.

By way of the end of 1944, the range of humans at Manzanar dwindles as guys are drafted and families take advantage of the government’s new policy of relocating families faraway from the west coast. Woody is drafted and, despite Papa’s protests, leaves in November to enroll in the well-known all-Nisei 442nd combat Regiment. even as inside the military, Woody visits Papa’s circle of relatives in Hiroshima, Japan. He meets Toyo, Papa’s aunt, and in the end understands the origin of Papa’s delight. In December, the U.S. preferrred courtroom guidelines that the internment policy is unlawful, and the battle department begins arrangements to close the camps. The closing citizens, out of fear and shortage of prospects, try to put off their departure, however eventually they may be ordered to go away. Papa decides to depart in style and buys a broken-down blue sedan to ferry his own family lower back to long seaside.

In long seaside, the Wakatsukis move right into a housing venture called Cabrillo homes. although they fear public hatred, they see little signal of it. On the primary day of sixth grade, but, a woman in Jeanne’s elegance is amazed at Jeanne’s capability to speak English, which makes Jeanne comprehend that prejudice isn't always usually open and direct. She later turns into close pals with the girl, Radine, who lives in the same housing mission. the 2 proportion the equal sports and tastes, but once they flow to highschool, unstated prejudice keeps Jeanne from the social and extracurricular successes to be had to Radine.

Jeanne retreats into herself and nearly drops out of college, however whilst Papa movements the family to San Jose to take up berry farming, she makes a decision to make some other strive at faculty existence. Her homeroom nominates her to be queen of the faculty’s annual spring carnival, and for the election assembly she leaves her hair free and wears an amazing sarong. the academics try to prevent her from winning, however her friend Leonard Rodriguez uncovers the lecturers’ plot and guarantees her victory. Papa is furious that Jeanne has gained the election by flaunting her sexuality in front of american boys. He forces her to take jap dance instructions, but she stops taking them after a brief time. As a compromise, she wears a conservative dress to the coronation ceremony, however the crowd’s muttering makes her recognise that neither the exotic sarong nor the conservative dress represents her actual self.

In April 1972, a whole lot later in existence, Jeanne visits the Manzanar web site along with her husband and two children. She desires to remind herself that the camp truely existed, due to the fact over the years she has began to suppose she imagined everything. walking thru the ruins, the sounds and pictures of the camp come returned to her. Seeing her eleven-yr-antique daughter, Jeanne realizes that her life started on the camp simply as her father’s existence ended there. She recollects Papa riding crazily through camp before leaving along with his circle of relatives, and he or she subsequently understands his stubborn delight.

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Literature Essays

The Bible is now an official Tennessee book. The state is walking a constitutional tightrope.

A tennessean's individual right to worship or pray may not be infringed upon, but the state may no show preference to any one religion either, according to the constitution..

• David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee.

Eight years after his predecessor vetoed a bill enshrining the Bible as the official state book , Gov. Bill Lee signed into law a measure making a version of the Holy Book one of Tennessee's 10 official tomes.

The Aitken Bible was the first edition of the Bible published in the United States during the Revolutionary War and joins other books including Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors" and Alex Haley's "Roots." Both Parton and Haley are or were luminaries and Dolly has achieved the honorary status of sainthood for many fans.

This was a clever way for lawmakers to get around past constitutional concerns about violating the First Amendment.

But the purpose was clear to send a message that most legislators — and the governor — favor Christianity over other forms of worship or lack thereof. If not, why would the Tennessee General Assembly pass a resolution designating November as Christian Heritage Month ?

While it's true that nearly three quarters of Tennesseans identify as Protestant Christians, according to Gallup , we citizens must not forget that this nation and the Volunteer State were founded on principles of keeping government from sanctioning any one religion.

Will recent protest let Vanderbilt silent majority of students finally feel enfranchised?

It's one thing to pray publicly or post a Bible verse on X, as many Tennessee elected officials do on the weekends, but favoring a particular faith position conflicts with Americans' constitutional obligation to live as a pluralistic society called to respect people of different backgrounds and ideas.

Here's what the federal and state Constitutions say on religion

Former Tennessee state Attorney General Paul Summers, who writes a weekly column for The Tennessean on civics education, has been delving into the First Amendment which prohibits the federal government from enacting any "law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise."

On matters of faith, the Tennessee State Constitution goes even further:

"That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience; that no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or to maintain any minister against his consent; that no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience; and that no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship." (Article I, Section 3)

This means that a person's individual rights to worship or pray may not be made unlawful, but also focus on the strong words chosen by the state's founders regarding limits on the government: "no man (or woman) can of right be compelled" ... and ... "no preference shall ever be given ..."

In 2022, The Tennessean began documenting the state's rise in Christian nationalism — how politics and faith intertwine.

That year, voters approved a referendum amending the constitution to end the official prohibition of "ministers of the gospel and priests of any denomination" from holding a seat in the Tennessee General Assembly. However, the unenforceable language keeping atheists from serving as legislators remains in the state Constitution.

In 2018, lawmakers unsuccessfully tried to place an amendment on the ballot that would add this language ( House Joint Resolution 37) : "We recognize that our liberties do not come from governments, but from Almighty God."

First Amendment rights provide Americans broad leeway, but there are also limitations

That clearly was a complete deviation from the original intent of the founders.

It would be foolhardy to deny an elected official's faith, values or ideals from influencing their world view and how they legislate, but there is a greater official responsibility also to defend the rights of their neighbors, who may be Jewish, Muslim, another faith or atheist.

They take an oath of office to defend the Constitution. That may at times cause a conflict between what they think is morally right and legally right, but when exercising their official capacity, they should seek to be constitutionally in the right.

Citizens do not have to agree on religion, but they should respect each other

Over the last two years, Tennessee lawmakers have passed laws with a values-based intent that the courts have deemed unconstitutional.

For example, the statewide ban on children viewing drag performers was struck down on First Amendment grounds.

Murfreesboro tried to ban the BoroPride LGBTQ-plus event based upon a value judgment made by the city manager.

Now, the city has paid a $500,000 settlement to the Tennessee Equality Project, the event organizer, which was represented by the ACLU Tennessee. The city council also repealed a community decency standards ordinance that reflected essentially one viewpoint.

Not only are discriminatory laws wrong, but they can be costly to taxpayers.

Citizens can disagree with each other on matters of faith, but that does not give license for the government to discriminate or pick winners and losers based on their religious denomination.

Yes, there is a balance between whether a baker or website developer can refuse services to same-sex couples (yes) or whether a secular employer can discriminate against someone on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity (no) — cases the Supreme Court has ruled on in recent years.

I would certainly encourage citizens to read any of the books on the state's new official list. Not because the governor said so, but because they provide a gateway to more knowledge, create a greater connection with fellow citizens and establish an understanding about why government should be limited in prohibiting the freedoms of its citizens.

These are the tomes that made the list of Tennessee's official books

• "Farewell Address to the American People," George Washington (1796)
• "Democracy in America," Alexis de Tocqueville (1835 and 1840)
• Aitken Bible (1782)
• Papers of President Andrew Jackson 
• "Roots," Alex Haley (1977)
• "A Death in the Family," James Agee (1958)
• "All the King’s Men," Robert Penn Warren (1947) 
• "American Lion," Jon Meacham (2009)
• "The Civil War: A Narrative," Shelby Foote (1958-1974)
• "Coat of Many Colors," Dolly Parton (2016)

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the  Tennessee Voices videocast  and curates the  Tennessee Voices  and  Latino Tennessee Voices  newsletters. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at  [email protected]  or tweet to him at  @davidplazas .

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California Today

How a New Reparations Effort Changed an Expert’s Understanding of History

Don Tamaki was integral to getting redress for Japanese Americans. He says serving on a California task force transformed his view on racism in America.

When California set up a reparations task force in 2020 to study the generational effects of slavery and other racist policies in the state and propose specific policy ideas for restitution, it was the first such statewide effort in the nation.

The nine-member team included lawmakers, scholars, community leaders and lawyers. Eight of the nine members were Black. The ninth was Donald K. Tamaki, a Japanese American lawyer with valuable experience to share.

In the 1980s, Tamaki worked pro bono on the legal team that reopened the landmark 1944 Supreme Court case Korematsu v. United States . The court’s decision in that case had been used to justify the federal government’s forced relocation and internment of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans and people of Japanese descent during World War II.

Tamaki and his colleagues persuaded a federal court in 1983 to overturn Fred Korematsu’s conviction for refusing to comply with the internment order, paving the way for Japanese Americans in 1988 to obtain redress , which included $20,000 for each survivor and an official apology from President Ronald Reagan. It remains one of the few examples in the U.S. of a successful reparations effort.

The Japanese American redress movement has taken on a fresh relevance as state lawmakers — acting on guidance from the reparations task force — consider a Black reparations legislative package .

Last month, I visited Tamaki at his home in Piedmont, hoping to hear more about the insights that he had shared with the task force. But over the course of our 90-minute conversation, it became clear to me that Tamaki had learned just as much from serving on the task force as he had contributed.

“I thought I knew something about American history,” Tamaki said over peanut butter cookies and coffee. “But I realized after taking a deep dive into this that I really didn’t know a whole lot.”

Tamaki left the sunroom where we were sitting and came back a few minutes later with a hardback copy of the task force’s doorstop report . It shows how Black people were enslaved in California even though it had joined the union as a free state. And it details how discriminatory housing, voting and criminal justice policies have hampered the ability of Black Californians to accumulate wealth for generations.

Tamaki said that working on the report had transformed his view of race and racism in America. For years, he said, he would start his talks on Japanese American incarceration by referring to the alien land laws of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Asian immigrants were banned from buying or leasing agricultural property. Or he would talk about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which effectively banned immigration from China.

But these days, Tamaki said, he begins his lectures by reaching much farther back into history, to 1619 — when a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia.

“I now see these things that happened to us in our community as essentially a subchapter in a racial pathology that began long before we arrived on these shores,” Tamaki said. “And that origin is not 1882 — it’s 1619.”

Decades ago, his parents had come to a similar conclusion, Tamaki said.

In 1942, 8,000 Japanese Americans from the Bay Area, including Tamaki’s parents and his extended family, were rounded up and sent to temporary detention facilities at Tanforan Racetrack , now a shopping center in San Bruno.

One of the first things his parents noticed after arriving at the racetrack were the signs reading “white” and “colored” hanging above the segregated toilets and drinking fountains, he said.

“They didn’t miss the irony that basically what began as anti-Black sentiment and animus, that whole construct — it just shifted to include this population,” he said.

The rest of the news

A coalition of law enforcement officials, politicians and businesses like Walmart and Target says it has collected enough signatures to propose a ballot measure to stiffen criminal penalties for shoplifting and drug dealing , The Associated Press reports.

Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, have updated their residency at Britain’s corporate registrar to reflect their California home.

Southern California

A man who impersonated a priest to steal from churches around the United States was arrested in Riverside County.

A mistrial was declared in the case of a former California school safety officer charged with murder for fatally shooting an 18-year-old woman, CNN reports.

Northern California

Sacramento International Airport experienced major flight delays after an AT&T cable was deliberately slashed , cutting off internet service to at least two major airlines.

Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney, said that motorists who were stuck on the Golden Gate Bridge during a pro-Palestinian protest might be considered victims entitled to “restitution” under California law, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Giant pandas will return to the San Francisco Zoo for the first time in decades, under a memo of understanding that Mayor London Breed and Chinese wildlife officials signed in Beijing on Thursday, The San Francisco Chronicle reports. How many pandas will arrive, and when, had yet to be determined.

And before you go, some good news

Known as 4/20, the annual April 20 pot party has been celebrated for decades across the nation. But where did it come from?

The answer: a group of teenagers at San Rafael High School in Marin County.

In the early 1970s, the group, who called themselves the Waldos, would meet at 4:20 p.m. to smoke marijuana and scour the Point Reyes National Seashore for marijuana that had been surreptitiously planted there, according to the History Channel. Soon “420” became their shorthand for weed, and the term took off.

Thanks for reading. We’ll be back on Monday.

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword .

Soumya Karlamangla , Maia Coleman and Briana Scalia contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

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Amy Qin writes about Asian American communities for The Times. More about Amy Qin