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The birth of a novel through a conversation with her nephew

I must’ve been 38 and my nephew came over to visit me and he had been born in camp. He was at Berkeley at the time. He was taking a class in sociology and they mentioned Manzanar and so that was the first time that he had heard the word Manzanar outside of the family context. Because when the family got together, if we talked about Manzanar, we joked about it and he didn’t even know…he was born there. So it was some kind of camp.

But when the sociology teacher mentioned it, just mentioned it, it perked his interest so he came to see me. And he said, “Auntie, you know, I was born in Manzanar but I don’t know anything about that place. What was it? What can you tell me about it?” And I said, “Well, didn’t you ask your mother and your father?” And he says, “Yeah, but they won’t talk about it. They change the subject. It’s as if I’m doing something wrong by broaching the subject.” So I said, “Well, sure, I can tell you a little bit about Manzanar” and so I began telling him about Manzanar the same way that we always talk about it. Lousy food, you know, in the mess halls and so forth and the windstorms. I said, “Oh yeah, and we played baseball.” I just made it look like it was really some recreational camp.

But Gary – he’s a product of the 60s. He has a much higher self-esteem and he’s looking at me and he says, “Auntie, this is really weird”. He says, “You know, you’re talking like being in a prison like it was nothing. I mean how did you feel about that?” And for one moment, I allowed myself to feel. No one ever asked me how I felt about that incident. And I just broke into tears and I just became hysterical and could not answer his question and of course it embarrassed him because he didn’t know what he had done to send his auntie into hysterics. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know what…I thought I was having a nervous breakdown.


California concentration camps Farewell to Manzanar (film) (book) imprisonment incarceration Manzanar concentration camp United States World War II World War II camps

Date: December 27, 2005

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, co-author of the acclaimed Farewell to Manzanar, was born in 1934 in Inglewood, California. The youngest of ten children, she spent her early childhood in Southern California until 1942 when she and her family were incarcerated at the World War II concentration camp at Manzanar, California.

In 1945, the family returned to Southern California where they lived until 1952 when they moved to San Jose, California. Houston was the first in her family to earn a college degree. She met James D. Houston while attending San Jose State University. They married in 1957 and have three children.

In 1971, a nephew who had been born at Manzanar asked Houston to tell him about what the camp had been like because his parents refused to talk about it. She broke down as she began to tell him, so she decided instead to write about the experience for him and their family. Together with her husband, Houston wrote Farewell to Manzanar. Published in 1972, the book is based on what her family went through before, during, and after the war. It has become a part of many school curricula to teach students about the Japanese American experience during WWII. It was made into a made-for-television movie in 1976 that won a Humanitas Prize and was nominated for an Emmy in the category of Outstanding Writing in a Drama.

Since Farewell to Manzanar, Houston has continued to write both with her husband and on her own. In 2003, her first novel, The Legend of Fire Horse Woman was published. She also provides lectures in both university and community settings. In 2006, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston received the Award of Excellence for her contributions to society from the Japanese American National Museum. (November 25, 2006)

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