There's a reason why people say hindsight is 20/20. Making a good decision—having the judgment and perspective to do so—is a lot harder than hindsight makes it appear. Farewell to Manzanar doesn't let anyone off the hook when it comes to the fundamentally unjust act of interning Japanese-American people, but it does let us understand how hard it was to judge what was just during wartime—even from the perspective of the internees.
Questions About Justice and Judgment
- How do racism and sexism impact the treatment of Japanese-American men during World War II in this book?
- What are the differences and similarities between the December Riot in camp and the riots against Japanese-Americans outside of camp?
- Is Papa's physical violence an appropriate or inappropriate response to the attacks against his character?
- If you were an FBI agent faced with the job of placing Japanese-Americans into internment camps, would you follow orders?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
The U.S. government was justified in locking up Japanese-American people because it was wartime.
It wasn't just to put all Japanese-Americans along the West Coast into camps and the government should have known better.