Some of the darkest pages in the history of mankind have been when one group of people was forcibly relocated to satisfy the needs of a larger or more powerful one. This would encompass things such as the Cherokee Indian relocation and the capturing and selling of blacks in other Parts of the world. The one being partially addressed in this essay is that of the Japanese internment camps in America during World War II. Every person in each one of these situations had a unique story, similar to others perhaps, yet unique. Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston is just one of those stories that someone who experienced it wrote down to be remembered. Manzanar worked in different areas of Ko and Jeanne Wakatsuki's unique personalities to bring about both growth and destruction, and simultaneously offer them insight and infuence into each other's character.
Ko Wakatsuki lost everything he had left of his pride and dignity at Manzanar. Jeanne Wakatsuki recounted her father's desperate grasping for whatever he had left of it.
"I see it has a sad, home-made version of the samurai sword his great-great-grandfather carried in the land of Hiroshima when their swords were both their virtue and their burden." The cane is symbolic of Ko's dignity in that it once was true and held meaning but is now dwindled and pathetic. Just as the cane is only a "sad, home-made version" of what once was, Ko had finally lost what was left of his dignity at Manzanar. However up to that point he still was able to keep some semblance of pride. Because he viewed his pride as necessary to the continuation of his life, he was "finished at Manzanar"; not because he died, but because he chose to die.
Jeanne Wakatsuki described Manzanar as something of a birthplace. She was able to move past Manzanar's attack on her soul, because she was young enough to define herself apart from Manzanar. Ironically, her father's attempts to hang on were the primary hindrance to her self-discovery.
