Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment

In 1945 the Manzanar administration closes the schools and announces that the camp itself will close by the end of the year. The government offers resettlement packages—i.e., funding—to those who choose to go somewhere other than their former communities. Papa selects this option since the government imprisoned him in the first place. This decision causes friction between Mama and Papa, as Mama says the family should have left the camps earlier because there is now a housing shortage. To combat this, Papa decides to organize a housing collective for all the people who are left waiting in the camps without prospects on the outside. Papa is confident he can secure both land as well as a government loan.

Both the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, and the end of the war foreclose any possibility that Jeanne and her family can delay their departure from Manzanar. Jeanne recalls seeing the pictures of the bombing of Hiroshima, noting, “[T]he same way the first attack finished off one period in [their] lives, so this appalling climax marked the end of another” (140). The bombing reaffirms the uneasy position of Japanese Americans. With most of her brothers and sisters gone to different parts of the US, Jeanne is left with Mama, Papa, and two of her siblings.