Farewell to Manzanar Questions

On what type of occasion does Papa cry, according to Jeanne Wakatsuki?

According to Jeanne Wakatsuki, Papa begins singing the Japanese national anthem, Kimi ga yo when Chizu, Woody, and Mama sang with him. Jeanne tells us he cries because he used to sing this in school when he was a school boy. He was also still worked up about getting in a fight with another Japanese man over the loyalty oath.

summary

Beginning with a foreword and a time line, Farewell to Manzanar contains an autobiographical memoir of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's wartime incarceration at Manzanar, a Japanese-American internment camp. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, in Long Beach, California, the family — consisting of both parents, Jeanne's four brothers and five sisters, and Granny — are startled by news that Japan has attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. FBI agents arrest Jeanne's father, Ko, for allegedly supplying oil to Japanese submarines and imprison him at Fort Lincoln, near Bismarck, North Dakota. In February 1942, President Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9066 ordering Japanese-Americans to evacuate their homes and take up residence in internment camps. The Wakatsukis, with Jeanne's brother Woody at the head, are transported to Owens Valley, California, home of 10,000 internees. The family, overcrowded and miserable in Block 16, endures unappetizing institutional food, dust storms, diarrhea, lack of privacy, foul toilets, and annoying, impersonal red tape. After his reunion with his family in September 1942, Ko escapes feelings of humiliation through the consumption of homemade rice wine and becomes an angry, bitter, drunken recluse. Jeanne avoids family disorder by hiding under the bed, studying catechism, playing hopscotch, and learning ballet. In spring 1943, the family locates better accommodations at Block 28, where Ko develops optimism through cultivating pear trees. Jeanne enjoys normal school experiences, including participation in glee club and yearbook activities. Camp life grows difficult as a result of pro-Japanese riots and forced loyalty oaths. Many young men, including Woody, disagree with the older generation and sign up for the military as a means of proving their loyalty.

Why doesn't Woody argue with Papa?

He knows that no matter what he is still going to have to join the army, and talking back to Papa will cause arguments about it.

in depth summary

In the rising action, life becomes more complex, more disordered for the Wakatsukis after Ko returns. Disturbed by imprisonment, he paces about the barracks, refuses to go outside, and uses spare rice or syrupy fruit to distill home-brewed wine. Because internees suspect him of informing on Japanese loyalists in order to end his imprisonment in North Dakota, they call him inu, which means both "dog" and "collaborator." Ko, an egotistical man incapable of coping with humiliation, lapses into alcoholism, self-exile, uncontrolled bouts of anger, exasperating tantrums, and wife abuse. After Ko menaces his wife, eleven-year-old Kiyo steps between them and punches his father in the face, then flees to his sister's quarters to hide. Jeanne acknowledges that Ko's spiritual and economic emasculation reflects the powerlessness of all male internees. As she summarizes Ko's impotence: "He had no rights, no home, no control over his own life." By December, the first anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the camp erupts in violent rioting as 2,000 malcontents roam the camp singing Japanese songs and mouthing threats at MPs. Two Japanese youths are shot to death, others injured. The new camp director lamely makes amends for the event by providing families with Christmas trees. In February 1943, polarization continues with the forced loyalty oath that requires internees to state their allegiance to the U.S. and their willingness to serve in the armed forces. Ko abandons his self-imposed isolation as he is drawn into debates with other male internees and into intense arguments with Woody, who wants an opportunity to prove his loyalty by joining the U.S. army. A footnote attests to the logic of Woody and his peers, who form the all-Nisei 442nd Regiment, "the most decorated American unit in World War II; it also suffered the highest percentage of casualties and deaths." Such overcompensation suggests the tremendous psychic pressures that a war with Japan placed on Japanese Americans. The multi-faceted dilemma of which blanks to check "yes" or "no" forces Ko into sobriety. Clean-shaven and again proud to head a household, he limps away to the mess hall. By 4:00 P.M., as Jeanne plays hopscotch, the men's discussion ends with Ko tackling a fleeing man who called him a collaborator. Others intervene to keep Ko from strangling his attacker. At this section's climax, the night ends with a sandstorm and the family clustered near the oil stove, where Woody, Chizu, and Mama listen to Ko and a female friend of Woody's wife sing Kimi ga yo, the Japanese national anthem, which Jeanne characterizes as a "personal credo for endurance."

Identify the two meanings for the Japanese word inu.

Inu literally means "dog" but can also refer to collaborators and informers.

anaylisis

Jeanne, maintaining the point of view of a young child, recalls the riot peripherally because she is too young to take part. Her game of hopscotch, a universal pastime, symbolizes her need to keep moving in incremental steps toward an attainable goal. As demonstrated later by her interest in dancing, singing, and baton twirling, Jeanne has a need to act out her frustrations with vigorous physical play, which relieves her of the stress of thinking too much about mature political and ideological debate, which she is too young to understand. The adult conflict, an ideological debate between extremist males, results in confrontations with armed military police, tear gas, and gunfire. Although two men die in the fray, Jeanne recalls her sensory impressions of ringing bells and searchlights, "making shadows ebb and flow among the barracks like dark, square waves." Chapter 10, an interpolated episode, shifts point of view to Kaz, Jeanne's brother-in-law, who, along with other reservoir crewmen, encounters wild-eyed MPs swinging tommy guns and shouting "Japs" at men whom they assume to be saboteurs. The scene stresses an axiom of imprison-ment — guards are drawn into the violence and paranoia that they create and thus become victims themselves. The loyalty oath evolves into a crucible in which the true mettle of citizenship is determined. As Jeanne describes it, the dilemma for Japanese Americans is a circle with three exits: "The first led into the infantry, the second back across the Pacific. The third, called relocation . . ." The latter choice would result in transport to the Tule Lake repatriation camp, from which the disloyal were to be sent back to Japan. Any of the choices threatens cataclysm for Japanese families, who have come to think of Manzanar as a refuge, despite its inconveniences and barbaric amenities. The catharsis wrought during the sandstorm allows Jeanne to accept Ko as a beleaguered adult. In her view, he is unable to resolve the political forces that buffet him and therefore takes temporary refuge in a childhood credo and in tears. The line of the Japanese national anthem which refers to the flowering lichen that coats the rock foreshadows Ko's eventual refuge in gardening, a traditional outlet which absorbs his energies and restores beauty to his fragmented life.

According to Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston what is the most divisive issue among the internees?

The most divisive issue among the internees was the filling out and signing of the government's Loyalty Oath.

Why do the women call Papa "inu"?

The women call Papa "inu" because he was released from Fort Lincoln earlier than the other men and is rumored to have bought his release by informing on the others.