576 Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki
of all their possessions and the stress of internment
lead to the further deterioration of the family as
Papa takes out his anger and powerlessness by beat-
ing his wife. In one pivotal scene, he comes close to
killing her when Houston’s brother Kiyo intervenes
and punches Papa in the face. The confrontation
ends abruptly, but not before Houston senses that
she has just witnessed her father’s downfall from the
controlling yet stable authority figure he had once
been.
The family faces even more turmoil when
brother Woody decides to volunteer for the armed
forces, against Papa’s wishes. Woody believes that
his service will prove to Americans that Japanese
Americans can be trusted. However, the issue of
loyalty is complicated for families like the Wakat-
sukis who still have relatives in Japan. Fighting for
the United States places some Japanese-American
soldiers in the position of possibly fighting against
their Japanese relatives. Woody eventually goes off
to war, and his trip to Papa’s village near Hiroshima
ironically reestablishes lost family ties. Papa had
left Japan when he was 17 years old and had never
returned, leaving his family to believe that he was
dead. Woody meets Papa’s family and reaches a
greater understanding of his father’s life.
Houston ends with a description of her return
to Manzanar 30 years after its closing. Her family,
like many other interned families, tried to forget
about Manzanar by never talking about it. However,
Houston refuses to bury those crucial yet difficult
years in her family’s life, taking her own children
to visit the site. As she watches her three children
look among the scattered traces of Manzanar, she
hears the voices of the thousands of internees who
endured the injustice of internment. By refusing to
silence those voices that include her own family’s,
Houston ensures that her children will remain con-
nected to their family heritage and will recognize
the courage their family displayed in the face of one
of the most painful moments in U.S. history.
Belinda Linn Rincon
nationaliSm in Farewell to Manzanar
Ko Wakatsuki’s experience as an issei, or Japanese
immigrant, is the most poignant examination of
nationalism in Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s Farewell
to Manzanar. Before the Japanese attack on Hawaii,
Ko had lived in the United States for 38 years, raised
a family of nine children, and given up all intentions
of returning to Japan. Despite these indelible ties to
his new country, he is legally barred from officially
joining the nation and is not allowed to apply for
citizenship, which makes him vulnerable to other
forms of discrimination. For example, while living
in Oregon, he is prevented from owning property
because of the Alien Land Law. The racial discrimi-
nation that he and others experience is exacerbated
by wartime hysteria after the Japanese attack. The
Wakatsuki family is forced to sell their belongings
and move to a prison camp because of President
Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which
allowed the government to label certain groups as
threats to national security and to exclude them
from military areas. This order eventually leads to
the imprisonment of Japanese Americans in intern-
ment camps like Manzanar.
As Japan and the United States went to war,
issei like Ko are caught in the middle as they are
separated from their nation of birth and denied
access to full citizenship rights in their nation of
residence. Although Ko is, in some sense, stateless,
he feels a deep bond to both nations. Japan holds
important family connections and ties to his cul-
tural heritage while the United States, despite its
racial discrimination, holds certain financial and
social opportunities. Also, with every birth in his
family, Ko is bound closer to the United States.
During an interrogation at Fort Lincoln, an official
asks Ko which country should win the war. Ko
responds with a telling analogy: When a child is
caught between bickering parents, he doesn’t want
either parent to die; rather, he wants them to stop
fighting. Ko’s response shows his emotional attach-
ment to both nations and makes it clear why choos-
ing between them is no simple matter.
However, in the wake of the Pearl Harbor
bombing, the United States does demand a choice
from Japanese Americans because nationalism
depends on loyalty. The United States attempts to
confirm Japanese-American loyalty through inter-
rogations and oaths, which have moral and physical
consequences. Manzanar internees over the age of
17 are forced to fill out the Application for Leave