An Essay On The Return To Manzanar

Book Essay, Research Paper

Manzanar Essay

Way back when during World War II the United States grew conflicts with many other nations. One of those conflicts was with Japan. The Americans discriminated against the Japanese because of the fact that they bombed Pearl Harbor. When we discriminated against them we called them names and did not include them into our life. Many Japanese were treated so unfairly against that they were sent to work camps and many of those that were sent were American born. We, as Americans, were locking up our own citizens of our country. The story of Manzanar is a story that reflects these issues very well.

The story , Farewell To Manzanar , is the story that shows the life of a girl, Jeanne Wakatsuki, growing up behind a barb wired fence, even though she was an American citizen. I think that it is sad that during World War II , when we had seen what Hitler had done to his own German citizens, being of a different race or religion, that we Americans go do the same thing. We might not have been killing them in camps, but we were, however, forcing them to do hard labor, some being American citizens, only because they were of a different race and originated from a country that we were at war with. I think that we could have gone a different way to solve our conflict with Japan. We, as Americans, should have approached a more civil way and used a more civil action.

After reading Farewell To Manzanar I discovered that we as Americans, even though our intentions might be for the better, many of our solutions towards problems do worse. Since we play the role of being a free country I think we should remain a free country and when citizens or people visiting this country get treated badly we should stop it. I think that in the end of all these experiences we can only learn from them and not have history repeat itself.