Farewell to Manzanar Written by: Jeanne Houston James Houston Literal Level: 1. Give examples of how the people who establish the camp at Manzanar immediately show their lack of understanding of Japanese-Americans and their culture. Examples of how the people show their lack of understanding of the Japanese-Americans and their culture can be seen right when they would arrive at the camp. The first day Jeanne and her family show up is right before dinner is being served. The cooks show their lack of understanding here by draping canned apricots over a bowl of rice as a sort of dessert. Well this did not go over very well with the Japanese because they never eat anything sweet w ...view middle of the document...
Most people divided the barracks in to their own rooms for that little bit of privacy by stringing one of their blankets up from one wall to the other. On top of all that was going on there were knotholes on the walls and on the floor which sand could get in to the barracks because of the wind. The Japanese like to have their living quarters clean and the sand always messed everything up. They would take pop cans and cut them up to be used as covers for the holes. They would nail the pieces of pop can over the holes so no more sand could get in.These are the most of the main misunderstandings of the Americans not knowing where the Japanese were coming from with their culture.2. Jeanne's papa changes in many ways between Pearl Harbor Day and the day he dies. Discuss some of the changes in Papa's role in his family. Papa's role in the family changes a lot form the day Pearl Harbor is attacked to the day he dies. The morning of the attack Papa was out on his boat with a lot of the other Japanese fishermen when they hear about the attack and come in to shore. Papa at this time is the main supplier for money and head of the household for his role. A few days later the FBI come to Long Beach where they live and arrest Papa for being a spy for the Japanese and take him to Fort Lincoln in Minnesota along with a lot of the other fishermen there. At this point he has no real importance in helping the family in anyway for a while. Months pass and the family has already moved in to the internment camp at Manzanar before the government decides they don't need to keep him in custody any longer and send him to Manzanar to be with his family. During that time he sent a little money to them that he had earned but again hadn't had much affect on the family and how it was being run. After about a year being held, interrogated and being forced to sign a waver saying that his is loyal to the U.S. and not to Japan that they let him go. When he arrived it was to a bit of a shocker. He was now head of the household again but he didn't help it in anyway by either working to get money for the family or just being a good father figure. He mainly kept to himself for the first months brewing and drinking home made concoctions he had learned to make from some of the other prisoners at Fort Lincoln. He would just sit there and drink his latest batch of rice wine or apricot liquor. After getting drunk he would usually fly into a fit of rage and beat Mama or take it out on one of his children. He kept to himself and tried to stay out of Manzanar society. He stayed like this almost until the closing of the camp. In this period of time he had much affect on what the others in the family would do but not help in anyway to support it. He seemed to put everyone down for the things they did and accomplished no matter how much it might have meant to that person. Towards the end of the war until the closing of the camp he did about the s...
