Farewell to Manzanar-biography essay

Let’s just say this came as a surprise for everyone here including the Japanese Americans. It all started off as a normal day, my family and I accompanied with a few neighbors stood and waved farewell to my father and the other men, who were off on another one of their fishing trips. Papa had a commercial fishing license and would go out fishing for days at a time, sometimes weeks, or maybe even a month depending on the fish. On this day he didn’t get far at all before he was turning around, no one knew at first why the men were turning around, we were all unaware of the reason, until it was announced that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

I was seven years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. My father was arrested and sent to an interrogation camp on Terminal Island and then later arrested and shipped off, being charged for delivering oil to Japanese submarines offshore.

On February 25, 1942 my family, which included my mother and nine brothers and sisters, and other Japanese-American families that lived along

I must say after awhile things got better and everyone became acquainted with the camps. They built schools, made jobs available, and everyone was there for each other, this was our home. Well, a while later Japan surrendered and not too long after that a petition was passed and everyone was allowed to leave the camps, but there was a problem. We’d been in this camp for three years and there was nowhere for anyone to turn back to. We were hated. No one wanted us in their town, nor schools there was just so much racist propaganda at the time. And for those families who didn’t leave voluntarily they were given a date to leave, such as my family.

I’ve only made the trip to visit Manzanar once, accompanied by my husband and kids. During that visit I looked for something that would make me hold the moment something I’d always remember. I knew that would be the last time I’d visit the place that brought along shame and guilt. Suddenly, I was able to remember the smell of burned cork. Papa would take burned cork, and burn dark rings into Mama’s skin when her back knotted. This was my sign, and I was able to leave with that remembrance.

We returned to Long Beach, since this was the only home we ever knew of. Being back

Some topics in this essay:
Terminal Island, Japanese Americans, Pearl Harbor, , pearl harbor, answer “no”, burned cork, answer “yes”,