Erin+C.+Farewell+to+Manzanar

1. Throughout life at the internment camps and the high school life after, Jeanne struggled with her identity. Since she grew up in a camp, she originally had a Japanese identity. However, when she moved to southern California and went to a public school, she started to change her Japanese identity more into an American identity. Many white American students still thought the Japanese were dangerous and were very prejudice. Jeanne hated this but used it to her advantage. She combined her old Japanese life with her new American identity. When arriving at a carnival queen festival, Jeanne said, “I knew I couldn’t beat the other contestants at their own game, that is, look like a bobbysoxer. Yet neither could I look too Japanese-y.” This way her father would be partially happy and she could try to live a normal life.When she was at this carnival, some parents didn't appreciate her dress, but all the students liked her new identity.



2. In Wakatsuki’s memoir, the non-Japanese greatly affect the actions of Jeanne. When living in the camps, everyone looked relatively the same. When venturing out into the rest of the American country, Japanese faces would stand out. The Americans role in this memoir is to show the difficulties the Japanese had when returning home to racism. One of the most important non- Japanese is Radine. She was friends with Jeanne even though she was Japanese. She helped Jeanne understand that it didn’t matter what other people thought of her and she needed to be herself. Jeanne noticed that boys would only talk to her and never ask her to dances as they did with all the other girls. This made her mad, but there wasn't much she or anyone else to do.

3. When arriving back to southern California, Jeanne realizes what she is really up against. She knew she would face hatred but she didn’t know it would be like this. She noticed at the school that there were many other races and she was close to being socially equal. The type of hatred she did face was different, though. When boys were dating all the white girls, they would only talk to her.At her school, she still was treated with some verbal abuse. When she was nominated to win an award, the teachers stuffed the ballot boxes to prevent her from winning. This was very uppseting to Jeanne. She also noticed that the community around her was still stuck in the prejudice times of the war. There were signs around the town that did not allow Japanese into the store and signs saying how bad Japanese were. Jeanne knew she was not a bad person but the american citizens still didn't understand.

Asian American Media. Japanese American Internment Camps. 6 March 2010. [].

East-West Center. **The American Reactions toward the Japanese and Japanese-Americans Following the ****Attack on Pearl Harbor. 6 March 2010. **** http://education.eastwestcenter.org/asiapacificed/ph2006/PH2006projects/7_clip_image001.jpg **

Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki and James D. Houston. Farewell to Manzanar. New York: Random House, 1973

. What aspects of this wikispace do you find most enlightening? Why? 2. How have the authors of this wikispace addressed Jeanne's identity struggle in a different manner than you did? Specify! 3. How have the authors of this wikispace examined Manzanar in a new way? Quote and detail.

{AS}1. A few of the aspects of this page that I like is that the photos are very large it helps the reader clearly see the main point of the wikispace right off the bat. 2. There are definitely differences between our wikispaces, to be specific she mentioned a lot about how her high school life was like outside of the camp when she returned to the west coast. In contrast in my wiki i related a lot to the time before she moved back to California, and how her whole family had prepared themselves for out right verbal and physical abuse like the rumors has stated. 3. The author of this wikispace looked at Jeanne's memoir and the acts of non-Japanese compaired to the Japanese Americans. She realized that the non-Japanese in this story have impacted Jeanne more than i ever thought so. For instance Redine was a large non-Japanese character that impacted Jeanne.