Named one of the twentieth century's 100 best nonfiction books from west of the Rockies by the San Francisco Chronicle. Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston Bantam Books, 1995 - Japanese Americans - 145 pages 3. Jeanne delivers a powerful first-person account that reveals her search for the meaning of Manzanar.įarewell to Manzanar has become a staple of curriculum in schools and on campuses across the country. She tells of her fear, confusion, and bewilderment as well as the dignity and great resourcefulness of people in oppressive and demeaning circumstances. Farewell to Manzanar, written by Jeanne Wakatsuki and her husband James D. Seen through the eyes of a child, the story of a Japanese-American.

Facing History and Ourselves has developed a study guide to accompany this book. The Farewell to Manzanar book is based on a true story of one Japanese American familys attempt to survive forced detention, and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United States. In Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalls life at Manzanar through the eyes of the child she was. Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of her family’s attempt to survive the indignities caused by forced detention, and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United States. For her father it was essentially the end of his life. For Jeanne Wakatsuki, a seven-year-old child, Manzanar became a way of life in which she struggled and adapted, observed and grew. One of the first families to arrive was the Wakatsukis, who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with them only the belongings they could carry.

Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese American internees. The powerful true story of life in a Japanese American internment camp.ĭuring World War II the community called Manzanar was hastily created in the high mountain desert country of California, east of the Sierras.

Farewell to manzanar book