Farewell to Manzanar
...d her family. The book also goes into some detail on how it felt to be split up from her father and how they felt like prisoners in a country they called home. The book also gives great detail of life in these camps. This particular book focused only on Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp near Mammoth. It gives good details on their cramped living situations, and how that there was no privacy, and how uncomfortable it was in the beginning. It describes that women used to put boxes over their heads in the restroom, so they didn’t have to look at anyone, and it thought it would offer them a little privacy also. It talks about the games, activities, and chores that the children would play to pass the time also. It also described the mess hall, and the meals that they had to eat over and over. Another thing that really was amazing to me is that the government tried to tell them that these camps were for their own protection, yet they were surrounded by barbed wire, and guard towers. During the final chapters of this book, the author does a great job on describing the tough time the Japanese had returning into society. After the Japanese were released from these camps and allowed to return to their homes, America still held a fear and hatred towards these people. She does a great job describing how hard it was for her to return back into society, and how the people she had known growing up looked at her, and viewed her, and all the comments and reactions that she had to listen to and take form people that she didn’t even know. These camps only stopped the bleeding during the war, the after the war their release was like opening the wound again. Executive Order 9066 that President Franklin Rossevelt passed was probably one of America darkest moments. Here is America, fighting a war in Europe, against a German government who has put Jews and other minorities into similar camps. Grant it, these American camps were not death camps, but they made Japanese Americans live in harsh living conditions because America was afraid of these people. The government divided families, removed them from their homes and lives, and forced them to enter these camps, so that we could sleep better at night. These camps really illustrated the type of atmosphere there was in America during this time period. Most of the Japanese who were put into these camps, were Japanese Americans, and had never been to Japan, but knew about it from what they had heard from others about the country and had some of the traditions passed on to them from other generations. We segregated these people from our society out of fear and hate, from what had happened to Pearl Harbor. In this t...