Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

James D. Houston

A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and  After the World War II Internment

Farewell to Manzanar

I don't rate memoirs/nonfiction books, but this was a week written and narrated book. I never learned about the Japanese internment camps in school, and barely stumbled on learning about them years later from another barely related fiction story (I don't remember the title or premise right now). It's good to read more about this subject from a human perspective.

Ari Rose

Douglas E. Welch

A story worth remembering

An amazing story of a dark period in America history. I have driven by Mazanar. Number of times over the years hut Reading this I have a much deeper understanding of its history and the countless people imprisoned there.

Originally published in 1973, this is a new paperback edition of the classic memoir of a young Japanese American internee at Manzanar during World War Two.

Meredith Rose

I picked up a copy of this book a couple of years back at a bookstore in Oklahoma, partly because it was a staff choice book but also because I had recently read a historical fiction novel about Japanese American internment camps and I wanted to see how a real, first-hand account compared. 

Farewell to Manzanar confirmed that these camps afforded more freedom to internees than I had previously expected. However, it also helped me understand the tragic erosion of culture that happened as a result of this forced internment. 

One of the saddest examples of this was when the author shared about the importance of family meals in Japanese culture and how it was virtually impossible to maintain this tradition because of the camp’s imposed meal schedules. This important tradition was disrupted during her family’s four-year internment and even after their release. 

What I enjoyed most about her narrative was the chance to view this period in American history from several different time periods. The author obviously experienced the internment in the early 40s, she wrote about her experiences in the early 70s, then she wrote an afterward in the early 2000s, and now I’m reading it even 20 years after that. Each time period lends new perspective and insight into the tragedy of those camps.

Luna

Liam Holbrook

Julie Kelly

Jennifer S

Marisa N

Courtney

Jonathon Balentine

Natalie

Chelsey Dennington 

Kate

During World War II a community called Manzanar was hastily created in the high mountain desert country of California, east of the Sierras. Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese American internees. 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. For Jeanne Wakatsuki, a seven-year-old child, Manzanar became a way of life in which she struggled and adapted, observed and grew. For her father it was essentially the end of his life. At age thirty-seven, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalls life at Manzanar through the eyes of the child she was. She tells of her fear, confusion, and bewilderment as well as the dignity and great resourcefulness of people in oppressive and demeaning circumstances. Written with her husband, Jeanne delivers a powerful first-person account that reveals her search for the meaning of Manzanar. Farewell to Manzanar has become a staple of curriculum in schools and on campuses across the country. Last year the San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the twentieth century’s 100 best nonfiction books from west of the Rockies. First published in 1973, this new edition of the classic memoir of a devastating Japanese American experience includes an inspiring afterword by the authors.

Farewell to Manzanar A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment

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