116 of 125 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very important book, May 21, 2000
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.
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36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful story of an American family's struggle, June 15, 2004
"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.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should be required reading in all public schools, September 22, 2001
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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