The Lesson on Mistreatment in Farewell to Manzanar

There were two main settings in the book Farewell to Manzanar. The first setting lasted for only two chapters in the book. The first setting was Jeanne’s old home, Santa Monica, California. She lived in a nice house and lived a very peaceful life. It was a very calm place to live, at the time. There were islands near Santa Monica, one was called the Terminal Island, this is where Jeanne's brother lived with his wife. Her house was near the water.

Manzanar was a Japanese internment camp. It had rows and rows of barracks, that had almost no space inside to live, they were made of planks of wood and tar paper. Instead of a normal house with a kitchen, they had to go to a big cafeteria-style kitchen that everybody else went to as well. Manzanar was by the Sierra Mountains and it was hot in the Summer and cold in the winter. There were wind storms That blew sand around as if they were in a sandstorm. People found work easily but did not get paid nearly enough for what they were doing. The camp was boarded with a barbed-wire fence. They also sound some people that could cook so they helped cook meals for everyone in the camp. The camp consisted of almost 10,000 members. Because there were so many members of the camp they all decided to make it look nice so people planted gardens. It was not their choice to go to the internment camp, but they had to because they were Japanese.

The main character in the story was Jeanne Wakatsuki. The story was all about her time and thoughts in Manzanar. Even though she was only seven when she was imprisoned in Manzanar she still had to do the same things as all the adults. Jeanne thought of herself as Americans because they were born in America. Jeanne was trying to make the best of what she had because she was seven, you can't do much at seven years old. And because she couldn’t do much she didn’t really complain. She really loved her family and later in life, she realized her father had to start over twice. She found herself in many strange situations because her family kept falling apart. That is why Manzanar had such a big impact on Jeanne.

Two other characters were Jeanne's mom and dad. Her mother was a kind gentle person that didn't understand why they were imprisoned in Manzanar. Jeanne's mother was short but still knew how to handle everything. When everyone was taken to Manzanar nobody knew what to do including her. She was completely lost and she didn't know what to do. Her dad, on the other hand, started as a nice man that loved fishing until he got arrested. After he got back from prision he became addicted to drinking and that made him angry and mean. Until years later when he almost killed himself on whine three years after Manzanar. He stopped drinking and then he became a nice man once more, but it took him almost six years to realize enough is enough.

The main conflict was how the Americans imprisoned the Japanese. America was fighting Japan during World War 2. The Americans put Japanese people in internment camps for three years. Even Japanese people that were born in America got imprisoned just because they were Japanese. The people that were imprisoned mostly spoke English, lived among other Americans and thought of themselves as Americans. They were put in internment camps just because they were Japanese people and they were looked at with fear and mistrust. They put them in an internment camp that was maybe a little better than prison, not much better though. There was no room to live or do whatever they wanted. They had to follow America‘s rules because America thought they might be spies or somebody like a spy who is just working for Japan in America.

The story started as Jeanne waved goodbye to her dad who was leaving for a fishing trip with two of his sons. When he was almost out of sight, he turned back and headed back to shore. He was coming back because Pearl Harbor, a navy base, had just been attacked by the Japanese. Jeanne's dad was arrested because he was accused of selling oil to Japanese submarines offshore while he was on his fishing trips. Even though Jeanne’s dad didn’t sell oil to Japanese submarines Jeanne was only seven at the time so she didn't understand the concept of being arrested. After that Jeanne, her mom, and two of her brothers moved to Terminal Island where one of Jeanne's older brothers lived. Two months after that Jeanne and her family were taken to a camp called Manzanar. Manzanar was a Japanese imprisonment camp. Even though Jeanne was an American citizen she still had to go to Manzanar because she looked like a Japanese person. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that Manzanar would be just like their everyday lives, it was anything but that. Manzanar was a place with small houses that could only fit a few people. The house that they were assigned to had to fit everybody in their family which was Jeanne, her nine siblings, her mother, and some of the older brother's wives. Manzanar was a terrible place to live.

After about a year people started to understand Manzanar, but it still wasn't an ideal place to live. Instead of having family meals or get-togethers now and then, they had to eat with everybody in the same cafeteria at the same time with 10,000 other people. Not only was Manzanar a prison the weather there was very intense. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. There were frequent sandstorms that interrupted everyone's lives. These storms made everyone have to go inside their houses. Jeanne learned that she really liked baton twirling during the time she was in camp. She thought she might like ballet even though she didn't really know what it was. when she went to the first ballet lesson she didn't really like it, so she quit. After another year or so she and her family were released from Manzanar. She went back to a normal town and lived there for the rest of her life.

The main conflict was resolved when the American government realized that they shouldn't have imprisoned the Japanese people, so they let them go. It was a happy day for all the people that were imprisoned in an internment camp. When Japanese people were released they were given $100 and the freedom to go anywhere they wanted. The bus that was free that took people back to civilization from Manzanar was going to Northern California so Jenny's parents went to South California so that they wouldn't be around so many Japanese people. Almost all of her problems were solved for her younger life when she left Manzanar. It was a good day for all of the Japanese people.

To me, the theme of the book was to not mistreat people because of how they look. For example, they imprisoned all of the Japanese people and not just the ones they had reasons to mistrust. The Americans knew what they were doing but, it was not the right thing to do. All of the innocent Japanese people were imprisoned for no reason besides the fact that they were Japanese.