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Summary: Internment from a Child's Perspective
Review: Jeanne Wakatsuki's split identity and the inability of American society to include her must be considered in the context of World War II and the internment of Japanese-Americans. Many of them long-time residents or citizens of the United States, Japanese-Americans were still treated as outsiders by the U.S. government, which interred them under the supposition that they might be threats to national security. However, despite this important subject, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James Houston's depiction of the internment camp, Manzanar, does not produce as strong as an effect as it might.Early in the book is an explanation of a Japanese saying that reveals something about the Japanese attitude towards hardship: Shikata ga nai, which means "It cannot be helped" or "It must be endured." This attitude is present in Farewell to Manzanar as a whole. Although the years in the internment camp Manzanar broke her father and caused the collapse of her family, Wakatsuki Houston's recollections never elicit strong emotions. Though no outright atrocities took place in the internment camps, as did in German concentration camps, the relocation of Japanese Americans was nevertheless an extraordinary act of injustice and prejudice. The reader wants to feel some sense of outrage or at least muted anger when reading a memoir like Manzanar, but that desire never gets fulfilled. Wakatsuki relates how the internment forced her father to come "face to face with his own vulnerability, his own powerlessness." She shows some of the cruelty her father's sense of "emasculation" caused, but because Farewell to Manzanar is primarily Jeanne's story, the reader never really feels her father's anger, or the anger that other internees must have felt. Wakatsuki seems to want to deny that anger; she writes, "My parents [. . .], like most of the other internees, accepted their lot," but her father's violent outbursts and the occasions when he wept when he sang the Japanese national anthem suggest that Ko Wakatsuki was far from accepting his lot. The depictions of the internment camp describe the harsh conditions as mere inconveniences, and the family's stay at the camp takes on, at times, an almost absurd resemblance to a stay at a summer camp, complete with dances and picnics. At one of the dances, Jeanne Wakatsuki's brother Bill sang "Don't Fence Me In," and Wakatsuki insists that it was not "out of protest, as if trying to quietly mock the authorities." The idea of young Japanese-American men blithely singing, "Don't Fence Me In" while imprisoned in a barbed-wire encircled camp and meaning nothing by it is ludicrous, and part of the strange juxtapositions in the book. It is also something the reader cannot quite believe. Shikata ga nai may have been a rule among the internees, but enduring injustice does not have to mean denying that injustice has taken place.
Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful and heartfelt book
Review: Farewell to Manzanar is an autobiography by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston,who was a little girl when she and her family were placed in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. The book begins when Pearl Harbor is bombed. She is seven years old. About a month after, Jeanne and her family are moved to Manzanar, where the government has set up camps for Japanese-Americans, who they fear won't be loyal to America. Jeanne writes about Manzanar as the place where her life began. She describes her life there as a child. As the book continues and her family leaves Manzanar, she writes about the impact of Manzanar on her and the other members of her family.
Throughout the rest of her childhood, Jeanne tries to find herself and understand how to live in the world given her race and heritage. She struggles living up to her father's expectations. She does not find total peace with her own identity until she returns to Manzanar thirty years after she first went there.
The book not only focuses on Jeanne's life, but also tunes into the rest of her family's. It shows how her mother feels disgusted by the camp, the way her brother is transforming from a boy to a man, and about her fathers mental and physical downfall.
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Summary: Perfect for Adolescents
Review: Farewell to Manzanar was a good description of what good young adult literature is all about. This was a good description of what happens to many children at the adolescent age. They are forced to move from living in one environment to another. With the move, they are forced to adapt and change their way of living. This book gave a good description of how it can be successfully accomplished. It gives other adolescents in the same situation hope that everything will work out in the end.
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Summary: Don't you hate those books your teacher makes you read?
Review: I usually do. I read this book recently for Language Arts, and it started out alright. It was very informative, and explanatory. However, the way she tells the story makes all Japanese out to seem to think practically the same way, and that they all acted the same because they were Japanese. She tries to portray the way Japanese felt about it, while effectively portraying what she must have been thinking when she was 7 years old.
She tried to make the reader feel sorry for her because of the way she thought, which caused her to hold her feelings inside, but it seemed rather hollow to me. It was sort of interesting, and did give me an idea of what the internment camps were like, but I wouldn't read it unless I had to, if I were you.
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Summary: Not one of my favorites
Review: I had to read this book for my English class. Although it isn't my favorite book, it is defenitely very informative. Since this book is, of course, totally bias, I would suggest reading another book on the other perspective, so you can grasp both points of the Japanese internment. I enjoyed the descriptive manner of the book, however, pockets of it were very dull. I would not suggest reading this for a research project, god no, but rather to inform.
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Summary: Farewell to Manzanar
Review: This I would have to say was a very good book. Before reading this book I didn't know much about the Japanese camps during World War II. I have only heard stories of them on 20/20. This gave a very good visual of the camp of Manzanar and the happenings of World War II through girls eyes in one of the United States camps for Japanese. I am left with shame with what the government did to the Japanese during World War II. I am truly amazed that this was a true story. I highly recomend this book.
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Summary: Should be required reading in all public schools
Review: Now that we live in a country where terrorists crash into skyscrapers, we find ourselves on the brink of war. More than ever, it is of tantamount importance that we remember our nations' past errors. To ignore what our parents and grandparents have lived and learned will set the stage for repetition of persecution of the innocent. The Japanese-Americans on the west coast during WWII were snatched from their homes, jobs and lives. They were placed in internment camps and held for no other reason than the slant of their eyes. After years of living behind barbed wire and treated no better than animals, they were released and sent "home". What they found was their homes and property repossessed, businesses destroyed, and replacements at their jobs. For a proud and self-reliant people, it was the ultimate degradation. Farewell to Manzanar is an eloquent reminder that America is not immune to racial fear and hysteria. To avoid a perpetuation of hate and bias, we must educate our children. I read this book at the age of ten and have continued to re-read it for the last 20 years. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston has educated generations with this detailed account of her family's ordeal. I wish this book was required reading in all public schools.
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Summary: Farewell to Manzanar
Review: I liked this book but it seemed to move a little slow. I think it is neat to see what the Japanese Americans were put through during the war even though they had nothing to do with it. It's weird because they were put practically in little neighborhoods were they lived for a long time. They had to make it their home. It was also neat to know what they did in the communities and how they lived.
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Summary: Houston's writing style fits with her background
Review: Houston's book is an excellent memoir about a shameful period in American history. The aspects that make the book great are those that many reviewers complained about. For example, Houston examines her family's experience from her mature viewpoint as an adult and parent while also looking at it from the young child's view that she carried with her from Manzanar. This triangulation makes for far richer reading than if she had remained completely in the child viewpoint. Other readers who reviewed here complained about the organization of the novel; they said it was 'messy' and it skipped around. If you're reading carefully, her organization, while not traditional, *does* have a certain logic. Those who profess to be experienced and educated readers must realize that there are many styles of writing around the world, and no one style is superior to another, it's more of a matter of preference. For instance, the preferred style in English is to select a topic and proceed in some sort of linear fashion -- in the case of autobiography we expect strict chronological order. Houston's style seems somewhat Oriental, which makes sense because of her Japanese background. Even though she grew up speaking and writing English, some linguistic influences from her family are bound to be present in her writing, and again, this adds to the richness of her work. To say that she is poorly educated is to do her a disservice, and it's just plain wrong. I encourage lovers of history and literature to put this book on their reading list.
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Summary: Good information on this book , felt like your were there
Review: This was a well writen book. It accutualy felt that you were in the containment camp with the japanese. Jeanne Wakatsuki did a excellent job with this book. I would recommend for you guys to pick it up.
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