The powerful true story of life in a Japanese American internment camp.
During World War II the 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.
In Farewell to Manzanar, 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. 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. Named one of the twentieth century’s 100 best nonfiction books from west of the Rockies by the San Francisco Chronicle.
How does a family hold on to its dignity when everything is taken away?
- A Child’s Perspective: Told through the eyes of seven-year-old Jeanne, who is torn from her home and must make sense of a confusing new world of barracks and barbed wire.
- A Family Divided: Witness the strain on the Wakatsuki family, as Jeanne’s once-proud father returns from a prison camp a broken man, and the family unit begins to crumble in the camp’s mess halls.
- Resilience and Dignity: Discover how a community creates a life within confinement, finding ways to maintain humanity through gardens, schools, and small acts of defiance.
- Essential World War II History: A vital, firsthand account of the forced removal of 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast, providing crucial historical context for young readers.