Farewell to Manzanar (Cliffs Notes)

Rating:
Summary: Powerful story of an American family's struggle
Review: "Farewell to Manzanar" is by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston. In a foreword Jeanne Houston notes that this book, which tells about the internment of a Japanese-American family during World War II, is a true story. "Farewell" is a rich and fascinating chronicle. The Houstons follow the lives of the members of the Wakatsuki family before, during, and after the experience of internment.

The narrative is full of compelling details of the family's experiences. It is particularly intriguing to watch how the internment camp evolved into "a world unto itself, with its own logic"--a "desert ghetto." During the course of the book the authors discuss many important topics: religion, education, anti-Asian bigotry, the impact of the Pearl Harbor attack, the military service of Japanese-Americans during the war, and more.

The Houstons write vividly of the dislocation, humiliation, and injustice faced by the Wakatsuki family. Also powerful is the narrator's struggle to come to terms with her own ethnic identity.

For an interesting companion text, I would suggest "Desert Exile," by Yoshiko Uchida; this book also deals with the internment experience, but from a somewhat different perspective which complements that of the Houstons. I was moved by "Farewell." The book is a profound meditation on both the hope and the tragedy of the United States, in which the "American dream" can become intermingled with American nightmares. I consider this book an important addition to Asian-American studies in particular, and to the canon of multiethnic U.S. literature in general.

Rating:
Summary: An WONDERFUL book of courage and forgiveness.
Review: Farewell to Manzanar was a wonderful story of courage. The courage of a child. The courage of a adult who learn to forgive and not hold in bitterness. To learn how to love herself and to fall in love dispite the turmoils of her life. What an awesome testimony. I applaud Jeanne for sharing this story and having the courage to let go. Her story was written so well, that as I read it I invisioned the events, her dance class with the ballerina trying to keep her dignity, her night outside the camp under the stars, her Dad's tantrums and abuse of her mother, and his feeling of losing control over his faimly's and his own life, the small space that they had to live in and the joy of moving to a larger space. And lastly the day that they left unsure what thier life would be like outside the camp. It was required that I read this book for a Sociology Class, but it opened my eyes to so much more. I will be giving this book to my teenage son to read. He hopes to one day visit Japan and is fascinated with the culture. So, I will be giving him this book to read so he can get a whole picture.

Rating:
Summary: A story as relevant today as ever
Review: When I first read this book 2 decades ago, I read it to learn about a history that I hoped our government would atone for. In fact, later, the US government did make reparations, and I had hoped that that would be the end of that story.

But today post 9/11, the same issues have arisen. This time, it is not Japanese-Americans, but Americans of Middle-Eastern descent. Today, the US Supreme Court announced its decision in "Hamdi v. Rumsfeld" in which a US citizen of Middle-Eastern descent was being held prisoner indefinitely by the US government even though there has been no trial and Hamdi has no access to a lawyer. The Supreme Court wisely said that this was unacceptable. In many sections of the opinion, the Court kept referring to the lessons we learned from the Japanese-American internment experience that is described in this book.

When times are stressful and we feel like we are being attacked by the enemy, it is easy to conclude that anyone who looks like the enemy should be detained, even without any evidence that that person did anything wrong. I hope that all people who feel that racial profiling is appropriate (or that all Middle Eastern people are suspect) read this book. Maybe this book will change their minds.