Rating: 
Summary: A very important book
Review: I have been thinking about this book more and more ever since I saw the rascist, effusive film "Snow Falling on Cedars". My big gripe with that film was that it made the Japanese Americans look so weak and helpless without white people to rescue them from their predicament. For those of you who disagreed with my review of that film, I strongly urge you to read (or re-read) "Farwell to Manzanar". This is a frank, accurate, and at times heart-breaking, true story of a Japanese family's internment in the camps. The narrative contains several different threads including: 1. The legal and economic injustice done to the author's family and thousands of other Japanese Americans. 2. The day to day life and survival requirements in the camps. 3. The difficulty of coping with generational differences within an interned Japanese-American family. 4. The difficulties and predjudices that Japanese Americans had to overcome in order to rebuild their lives after they were released. Ms. Wakatsuki-Houston's memoir is simple and compelling. She describes her childhood experiences from the objective and mature perspective of an adult, a wife, and a mother. But despite the passage of time her narrative still conveys a great deal of pain and difficulty in coming to terms with her childhood internment at Manzanar. The most interesting part of the book for me was how the author's family attempted to rebuild their lives after the U.S. government robbed and humiliated them. The father immediately started a farming venture whose success was only undermined by unsually adverse environmental conditions. One of the sons served in the military and then resumed the family's fishing business. And the author herself challenged the pedjudiced administration of her highshool by becoming prom queen despite their attempts to thwart her. Contrary to the wishful thinking of "Snow Falling on Cedars", the white people in this book do not come back and redeem themselves. They do not rescue the people they victimized, and they do not receive bows from them. No woman begs the white man for permission to put her arms around him. The people in this memoir endure their mistreatment with strength and dignity. When they are released from the camps, they rebuild their lives on their own without assistance, sentimentality or self-pity. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about a shameful period in American history, and who wants to see how people who are treated unjustly can still survive and move on. But most of all, I recommend this book to people who were taken with the Hollywood version of what happened to Japanese Americans in this country during World War II.
Rating:
Summary: A WONDERFUL book of courage and forgiveness.
Review: Farewell to Manzanar was a wonderful story of courage. The courage of a child. The courage of an 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: Farewell to Manzanar
Review: Farewell to Manzanar is the extraordinary book co-written by a Japanese American woman who was only seven when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese in 1941. Jeanne Wakatsuki, along with 10,000 other Japanese Americans, was uprooted and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp in Owens Valley, one of two such camps located in California. This true story covers a family attempting to adjust to, then recover from, forced internment within the United States.
It is not difficult now to look back on the forced internment of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II, and clearly see that it was an unacceptable choice. It is unthinkable that the United States resorted to what so closely resembled a concentration camp. It was highly destructive to their family unit and their culture. Nor does it appear that any real strategy was developed for re-integrating these people into society after their encampment. The only benefit may have been, that due to high resentment towards the Japanese during WWII, even those residing peacefully within our Country, these Japanese Americans remained safe from being targeted for acts of violence due to overall anti-Japanese sentiment.
Although the story jumped around a little too much, Farewell to Manzanar was effective in telling the story through individual experience. For the children, like the co-author at the time of encampment, the time at Manzanar was not tolerable. But for most adults, it was nearly unbearable. But these strong people managed to cope as best they could; finding work within their confinement, allowing them to bring in a small salary, shoring up their poorly built barracks to withstand the weather, partitioning them for a small sense of privacy, designing rock gardens to try and beautify their stark environment and to retain some sense of their culture.
At times, the tenseness caused these people to turn against each other, and they were sometimes as hard on each other as citizens on the outside might have been to them. Retaining honor was socially vital to these people, and helping Americans was often seen as traitorous. Generally, they accepted those in charge of the encampment. The only significant uprising was in December of 1942, at which time two internees were killed, and ten were wounded by gunfire from U.S. Army Military Police.
Farewell to Manzanar was helpful towards learning about Japanese American encampment within United States during World War II. It imparted a sense of their transition to encampment, their daily lives there, and their difficult re-integration. This story not only reflected the realistic and negative side, but it also reflected the strength of these people, their sense of honor, and their ability to cope. It would be interesting to go back and see what would have happened if different choices had been made; what if any difference it would have made for Jeanne, how the Father's life would have played out, how the Japanese Americans would have been treated within society. The correlation to the difficult transition of black slaves at the end of the Civil War was thought provoking. As a Country, it is hoped that from viewing our past mistakes, we will learn from them, thereby preventing the same from happening again in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Help us!
Review: I thought Farewell to Manzanar was a very sad book.I though it was sad because Jeanne's family was torn apart. Another reason I thought this book was sad was because the Japanese-Americans were treated like like dogs for something they had nothing to do with. This book made me realize that some people's lives are alot worse then my own. After I read this book I really began to appreciate my life. When the Japanese-Americans were thrown into the camps, it just shows how bad they were treated. Sure, many people thought that the Japanese-americans were spy's, but who wouldn't? Most Japanese families eat dinner together, but when they were thrown into the camps they were forced to split up! Those few years of WWII really tore some Japanese families apart. I feel sorry for them and hope that it never happens again.
7.2 N.U
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: I was assigned to read this book in seventh grade. I read it in two days, I couldn't put it down. This book is a great read for all ages, it is a very mooving and powerful book.
Rating:
Summary: A very important book
Review: I have been thinking about this book more and more ever since I saw the rascist, effusive film "Snow Falling on Cedars". My big gripe with that film was that it made the Japanese Americans look so weak and helpless without white people to rescue them from their predicament. For those of you who disagreed with my review of that film, I strongly urge you to read (or re-read) "Farwell to Manzanar". This is a frank, accurate, and at times heart-breaking, true story of a Japanese family's internment in the camps. The narrative contains several different threads including: 1. The legal and economic injustice done to the author's family and thousands of other Japanese Americans. 2. The day to day life and survival requirements in the camps. 3. The difficulty of coping with generational differences within an interned Japanese-American family. 4. The difficulties and predjudices that Japanese Americans had to overcome in order to rebuild their lives after they were released. Ms. Wakatsuki-Houston's memoir is simple and compelling. She describes her childhood experiences from the objective and mature perspective of an adult, a wife, and a mother. But despite the passage of time her narrative still conveys a great deal of pain and difficulty in coming to terms with her childhood internment at Manzanar. The most interesting part of the book for me was how the author's family attempted to rebuild their lives after the U.S. government robbed and humiliated them. The father immediately started a farming venture whose success was only undermined by unsually adverse environmental conditions. One of the sons served in the military and then resumed the family's fishing business. And the author herself challenged the pedjudiced administration of her highshool by becoming prom queen despite their attempts to thwart her. Contrary to the wishful thinking of "Snow Falling on Cedars", the white people in this book do not come back and redeem themselves. They do not rescue the people they victimized, and they do not receive bows from them. No woman begs the white man for permission to put her arms around him. The people in this memoir endure their mistreatment with strength and dignity. When they are released from the camps, they rebuild their lives on their own without assistance, sentimentality or self-pity. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about a shameful period in American history, and who wants to see how people who are treated unjustly can still survive and move on. But most of all, I recommend this book to people who were taken with the Hollywood version of what happened to Japanese Americans in this country during World War II.
Rating: 
Summary: Farewell to Manzanar; So Long
Review: I think this book was okay i did however learn that there are people in other places that are a lot worse off than I'am . Thankfully times have changed and our world isn't so cruel. I hope that the people in the story are a lot better off now.
Rating: 
Summary: Farewell to Farewell to Manzanar
Review: Recently I was assigned to read a story called Farewell to Manzanar. It is about a young Japanese girl sent to live in a camp for Japanese after Pearl Harbor. She has to leave everything and live in the camp for about 2 years and when May (Japanese girl) and her family their life has totally changed. Then when she gets way older she comes back to Manzanar and remembers what it was like.
I thought the book had some good things and some bad things about it. It was very good if you want to know what happened to Japanese people after Pearl Harbor. People can see how harshly they were treated and how tough it was for them to recover even after a few years. I didn't like the book because I thought it was a little slow and not much happened for a large amount of time in the book. The whole book took place in the camp Manzanar for a really long time and some different, interesting things happened while they were there but not much. There is really only stuff that happens in the beginning and the end. In all of Manzanar not to much happens. If you like books where you can learn a lot about our history and there still being a story it is the right book for you, but if you don't I don't recommend it very highly.
Rating:
Summary: Mananar-A Real Place
Review: This book discribes Jeanne's life before the war- during and briefly after.
Jeanne's story starts when she is 7 years old and takes us with her up to her years in highschool, and later her life as a parent. Some scenes show how the Japanese were discriminated and unequally treated. This book also shows how humans suddenly can find themselves making fun of their allies both knowingly and unknowingly, and the harshness felt between them. Her discriptions are well written and much discribed as her view as a child living in Manzanar. The characters in this book are assumably real, but one must assume what the real charactors were like and read between the lines to understand their feelings. Many books such as this one should be read to get a full picture of the world situations during the 1940's.
Rating:
Summary: Farewell to Manzanar
Review: the novel Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wskatsuki Houston and James D. Houston. this is the most bitterness book that we'ver ever read. gut it was kind of not that interestingto read. the book is mostly about world war II when Jeanne's family had to stay in a camp whith other Japanese people. then it took place when the war was over. the way she escribe this is really great. we could even picture ourself in the book with Jeanne. this book could take us back to history but it's not that interested. we would give her 3 stars for trying because no history could be interesting fot teenager like this book.
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