Farewell To Manzanar American Dream

Farewell To Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki, was the first public written account of the Japanese internment camps. This memoir was written to show the decay of the American Dream through the internment process, but also shows the American Spirit present throughout the experience. The American Spirit is the idea that no matter how hard situations get, people (or Americans) will never give up. The American Dream is an idea that many immigrants look for coming into America, including the Japanese. Farewell To Manzanar is the first account of how the Japanese were prevented from experiencing the American Dream yet they refused to hold this situation against Americans. The internment camps were a product of fear from Americans toward the Japanese

The American Dream is equal opportunity and overall family welfare. It allows for the achievement of economic prosperity, equality, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. Being moved into Manzanar it was no longer up to the Japanese on what they could do and where they could go. The latrines at Manzanar were exposing and uncomfortable for the women. Jeanne’s mother, and the other Japanese women, believed in a more conservative lifestyle. The latrines, to Mama, were a, “humiliation she just learned to endure” (Wakatsuki 33). This was a big part in the disintegration of the American Dream. The Japanese were prohibited from their right to privacy. Along with Mama, Jeanne’s Father was very traditional and tried to hold on to many Japanese customs. Jeanne, more than once, explains how “things finished” (Wakatsuki 47) for her father at Manzanar. Papa begins drinking heavily after he realizes his chances at the American Dream are completely gone. Along with the drinking he becomes abusive towards Mama. During one fight, Papa became extremely out of hand and his youngest son, Kiyo stepped forward and punched his father. Wakatsuki explains the look on her father’s face both with “outrage and admiration” (Wakatsuki 70) that his son did that. This is another representation of the decay of the American Dream because at this point all the power

The U.S. went into WWII in 1942 after the Japanese bombed U.S. naval base, Pearl Harbor. The bombing of Pearl Harbor took out the majority of the U.S. Navy. This attack struck fear in all Americans, and was followed by extreme hostility to the Japanese Americans. The fear became so severe that the U.S. government created the internment camps inland from the west coast where they sent all people of Japanese descent. This occurred because the government was afraid that the Japanese Americans, living too close to the coast, could communicate with Japan. They were “stripped of their civil liberties” (Des Jardins) on American soil. Part of the American Dream for people was to escape persecutions of all kinds. The camps eroded people’s American Dream and freedoms. Moving into these camps was disaster for the Japanese Americans. The camps destroyed the old traditions and gender roles. The men felt “emasculated by the low wages” (Des Jardins) they received from low-status jobs inside the camps and the women were “shamed in barrack commodes” (Des Jardins) having to expose themselves in front of their families and strangers. Before the camps, families would eat meals together. Once the Japanese Americans were forced into the camps and their lifestyles changed, families stopped their