other Japanese-Americans.SettingThe story opens in December 1941 in Ocean Park, California. Ocean Park is a coastal community near Santa Monica; many inhabitants make their living by fishing. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Wakatsuki family relocates to Terminal Island, an Asian society. The navy evacuates Terminal Island completely, and the family moves to Boyle Heights, another minority ghetto. Eventually, the war causes increased racial tension and Japanese-Americans are sent to Manzanar, an American "concentration camp” at the edge of the Mojave Desert.CharacterThe main characters of the story are Jeanne Wakatsuki, Ko Wakatsuki, Mama Wakatsuki, and Woody. Jeanne Wakatsuki is the narrator of the novel. As a child, she is cheerful and innocent. Her family is moved to an American relocation camp for Japanese-Americans, where she tries to adjust and fit in. Ko Wakatsuki is the patriarch of the Wakatsuki family. He is an imposing figure in his family of ten children. He does everything with a flourish and basks in the long-gone glory of his origins in Japan. He is falsely arrested and imprisoned in an American jail during the war. Mama Wakatsuki is a respected woman and supportive wife and mother. She emerges as a strong character because of her status as primary moneymaker. Woodrow "Woody" Wakatsuki is the oldest Wakatsuki son. He is hardworking, honest and always optimistic. He acts as a substitute father to his younger siblings when their father is arrested. ThemeThe theme of the first two chapters of the book, Farewell to Manzanar is mainly racial prejudice. Most everyone in the first two chapters treats the Wakatsuki family very unfairly. The families around where the Wakatsuki family lived treated them like scum and the US government didn’t treat the Wakatsuki family or any of the Japanese families like human beings. The government boxed up all the Japanese families they could find in the United States and sent t...
