Camp Manzanar

December 7th, 1941, which is what Franklin D. Roosevelt called “a day which will live in infamy” is the day in which Pearl Harbor was bombed and the United States got involved in World War II. This also caused tremendous fear and distrust towards Japanese ancestors, even if they were American citizens, and led to Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones, resulting in the deportation of Japanese Americans to internment camps, such as Manzanar. Consequently, some Japanese-Americans saw their family structures disintegrate because of their experiences at Camp Manzanar.
Camp Manzanar scarred the lives of many Japanese-Americans as
The United States military separated families for false accusations. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many men and fathers who made their living off of fishing were taken away very abruptly to an unknown camp, Fort Lincoln, leaving families depressed, anxious, angry and in a state of panic. Papa was one of these men. By reason, this left the Wakatsuki family in distress because they no longer have a strong patriarch to solve conflict. This was extremely unfair to separate families for false accusations due to race; it tore them apart, and only got worse by the time families were actually in internment camps. Specifically, when Woody was drafted into the US army in August of 1944, this withered the family dynamic even more. Also, Jeanne’s sister, Eleanor, went back to Camp Manzanar after her husband got drafted and had to give birth to her child in the camp. In summary, families’ structures were constantly being split up due to the establishment of camps like
Accordingly, a huge problem throughout the Wakatsuki family’s time in camp was Papa’s alcoholism. When he returned from Fort Lincoln, he lost his strong character and cracked under pressure. He left Lincoln early, and many others believed it was because he snitched on other men in the camp and was called an “inu”, or “collaborator” in Japanese. This stress led to more and more drinking, and eventually Papa was always so impaired that he was a threat to the family. One scarring night, he beat Mama until she knew she was going to die, and Kiyo had to protect her from her death. This had an obvious effect on the children of the Wakatsuki family. Jeanne declared, “Papa’s life ended at Manzanar” (Houston and Houston, 195). He went from being the head of the family, someone they could all look up to, to someone who could not even control himself by the end of the novel. This was all due to the trauma that the internment camps placed on the families which lead them to dissolute. In many ways, some Japanese-Americans saw their family structures disintegrate because of their experiences at Camp Manzanar. The mess halls started the fragmentation of families, which brought upon changes throughout the family dynamic, structure, and attitude. These changes as well brought problems to family life due to the way of coping with the camp, especially Papa’s