Farewell To Manzanar Analysis

Farewell to Manzanar
New living environments will affect people in many ways. Different cities, different cultures, different people around us, even different food will affect people mentally and physically. The book Farewell to Manzanar which is written by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, is a memoir of the Japanese American family during and after World War II. The story is talking about Jeanne Wakatsuki and her family’s developments during World War II, especially concentrating on their internment life in Manzanar. The internment of the Japanese affects the Japanese American community in many ways; in the book Farewell to Manzanar, Papa is the one who changes the most dramatically during and after their experiences in Manzanar.
While the Wakatsuki family lives in Manzanar, Papa returns to Manzanar from North Dakota, where he was forced to work as an interpreter helping the Justice Department interview other Isseis. Papa has some physical changes in his appearance when he returns. He becomes thin and withered, has a broken right leg, and looks ten-year older. He used to be proud, but after he arrives at Manzanar from North Dakota, he becomes a bitter, outraged, and angry recluse. He exiles himself in the barracks they live and does not go outside. Papa used to be a person whose self-esteem is strong. He also used to be an independent and arrogant person who likes to build up his own business. However, when he is in North Dakota, his self-esteem is broken down by suffering a lot of pain and depression because all he has built up has taken by the U.S. government. He cannot be a commander who gives orders and acts as a respectful and proud leader in his family,
By the end of 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the internment policy is illegal, and the War Department begins to close the camps. Internees are ordered to move out of the camps, but people are afraid of going back because they have no home to return to, including Jeanne’s family. After they move out from Mazanar and settle down, because Papa’s boat is gone and he is too old to find a job, he becomes dependent on Woody. Woody is younger and since he was in the military and is a U.S. citizen, he can get a commercial license and help his father build up an enterprise. Jeanne grows more distant from Papa after leaving the camp, not only because she has lost respect for him because Papa continues drinking heavily but also because he rejects her attempts to fit into American life while Papa refuses to conform to American ways. Although the Wakatsuki family lives in U.S.A, Papa still has a sense of preserving his ancestry as a patriotic Japanese man. However, we can notice from later chapters that his persistence in maintaining hope to cling to a Japanese collective doesn’t bring benefits but only brings disadvantage on his relationship between his