Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Identity In "Farwell To Manzanar"
So far, how much of Farewell To Manzanar deals with Jeanne's struggle to discover her identity? How does her Japanese identity conflict with her American identity? How does her experience with prejudice help her to reconcile the two? (Please use quotations to support your response. Due by 3:30p.m. on Thursday, 2-19-2009.)
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I think she is deeply conflicted about weather or not her own race is good."It was the first time i had lived with other Japanese, or gone to school with them, and I was terrified all the time."(p-11) She had been brought up to be afraid of her own race.'It was partly papas fault. One of his threats to keep us in line was"I'm going to sell you to the chinaman.""(p-11) Also creating a racal conflict in side of her was the fact that every one of here race was being treated as a villain.SO yes I do think the book talk about her conflicting identity.
So far, it has been hard for Jeanne to find her identity. It's hard for her to be part Japanese and still be brought up in America because then there was a lot of prejudice against the Japanese, so this might have made her wonder if her race was good or not, especially since she wasn't ever really around them. "I was the only oriental in the class."(pg.11) But then she learns to better accept her identity when she realizes that everyone of her race is treated as an enemy.
Prejudice is thought to be just a racism thing but it is more it is not liking something about someone whether is what they do or how they do something. Jeanne sees the prejudice on a notational level “Mama’s nerves were shot; now Navy jeeps were patrolling the streets” (pg 14) with the nation against her just because Japan as a country was the enemy not her or at least she should not have been, Jeanne believes that the camps are not a big deal and she is lucky just to have her family together ‘I opened the window and yelled happily. “Hey! This bus is full of Wakatsukis’.” (pg 19) Her Japanese identity is connected through her family she has never been to the country and speaks English only she grew up in the United States it being her country not being treated wrong till after the camps began and Pearl Harbor “This was the first time I had felt outright hostility from a Caucasian.”(pg 16) I expect more on her identity to come when so far the book is in a place where it has only scratched the surface.
Jeanne has her two sides, the japanese side and the american side. So far she really doesn't know about her japanese side. "They not only spoke Japanese exclusively, they spoke a dialect peculiar to Kyushu..." Only proves more that she is only in touch with the american side of her. The japanese side doesn't even show exsept in her apperiance and in the food she eats.
in the book she has not been able to hide her identity. since she a japanese american she has to deal with the prejudice from all the other americans. "I was the only oriental in the class,"(pg.11) was something the girl said which shows how there wasn't that much mix of color in her school. though soon when she is in the camp Jeanne learns that everyone of her race gets the same lack of trust and respect.
So far, the book deals a lot with Jeanne's identities. Since she is Japanese and lives in America, she is persecuted more (especially with the Pearl Harbor attack). She realizes that being a different nationality interferes with her mostly American life. She knows she is American; however, she sees that her roots are Japanese, so she's always going to have that identity too. At first, it’s hard for her to distinguish between the two, like when she said, “On Terminal Island I first saw Orientals, those demon-children who had terrorized me. At Manzanar, ... the fear of slanted eyes and high cheekbones …” (p 40). She hadn’t known that she was Japanese; she thought she was just an American, like most the others in California. Later, when she sees she's Japanese, she said “…I was too young to be insulted.” She didn’t realize that she was really being persecuted because of her Japanese identity.
She has been an american all her life, but now she is considered an "enemy race" by a lot of america. So she is learning about her own Japenese culture.
She does not know how to deal with her true heritage. She deals with prejudice and isolationism all the time because of her race. "I was the only oriental in the class"(11). The stories of how her father was never able to make his life what he wanted to could have created a big impact on her life because her life could possibly follow the same route. Even if she tries to be brought up mostly as American, she can't entirely avoid where she came from. She will always have prejudice and ancestry as an obstacle in her life.
I think she is confused weather her race is good or bad because there pepole that look idffrent and still has the though of the chinaman.So she is in a struggle to find her identy and she will but it will take awhile until she is comfortbul with every other race around her.
life in the internment camps is very difficult. they are constantl having to improvise and problem solve in order to make it feel some what like their home. there are no barriers i the bathroom and they are all terrified of going with out proper plumbing. life styles have to change for everybody, and it has to change fast.
i believe the only ties she has with her japanese heritage is through her father and it isn't extremely strong. It only starts to hit her when her father is taken away.
I think the identity is that to be acceted. Like she has accepted all the other races that are around her,but not her own. She hasn't accepted her own race probably becasue shes is surronded by others that are not oriental. As said, " And it was still with me, this fear of Oreintal faces..." (pg 11) THis shows that she has a fear of the orientals, because she is still thinking of them through out the page. This can show that she has acceptance for others and not herself.
Jeanne’s struggle to find her identity is very challenging for her and takes up most of the beginning of the book. Her American identity is covered fairly well although her Japanese side is not. Growing up in America, her parents and family tried to distance themselves from their Japanese ancestry and become Americans. Although her parents weren’t technically American citizens they still considered themselves American. Her parents, in attempt to immerse their children in American lifestyle did not teach their children much about their Japanese ancestry; leaving Jeanne to figure it out for herself. As you can imagine this is very emotionally and physically draining on Jeanne. As a Japanese person, Jeanne experiences a lot of prejudice towards her and her people. But as an American, she is treated less harsh even though she still experiences strong prejudice towards her because the color of her skin.
Jeane is in a fight for her identity, and is having a hard time finding her self. She is a japanease american and cant really balance out her japanease ethnicity and her american ethnicity. She struggles to find her self in the mess between the americans and the japanease. she wants to understand everything but know herself at the same time.
I think she was always proud of being Japanese,and now she's forced to believe that she shouldn't accept who she is. She's having major difficulty still though, because she was brought up in America and has always been considered Americans. "That night Papa burned the flag he had brought with him from Hiroshima thirty-five years earlier. It was such a beautiful piece of material, I couldn't believe he was doing that. He burned a lot of papers too, documents, anything that might suggest he still had some connection with Japan."(P-6)Its terrible that they had to destroy all of their belongings that connected with Japan, and it shows how tough it must of been for a 7-year-old girl to accept her race, but still feel like she was hiding it and being pushed away from it.
She struggles because she has japanese ancestry, and the japanese have attacked the United States, so a lot of Americans picture Jeanne as an enemy. She knows very little about her Japanese heritage, and her American culture knowledge overthrows it. However, her idea of being pictured as an enemy from the eyes of Americans does not come until the Government takes away her father.
i think the idenity for farewell to manzanar is to always learn what your about. The book says that if she was bad she would be sent to the china man... she was shy and scared of "oreiantals" and when sha sat next to a white girl, she cryed
Jeanne is struggling to find her identity. Although she is partly American, she is also Japanese, and I think it is hard for her to accept that she is Japanese since there is so much prejudice. "I was the only oriental in the class."(p11) this quotes tells us that she was in a school where there was only few mix of colors. Although she is content with the races around her, I don't think that she has accepted her race.
jeani is a verry confused girl, and her confusion starts at a verry early age.
she is cought between the thought that it is her falt that her and her family are caged like wild
beasts in the book she says, i must have done somthing really bad to deserve a punishment such as this. her confusion escalades as she gets older and more meature and able to construct evenmore excuses to why the verry people she admired caged her and ridicled her.
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