For many middle and high school students across the United States, the book Farewell to Manzanar has been their introduction to one of the darkest times in American history. Jean Wakatsuki Houston’s memoir tells of her childhood years in what was called the Manzanar War Relocation Center but in reality was a concentration camp. From 1942 until just after the end of the war in 1945, more than 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were held in Manzanar alone. It wasn’t the only concentration camp for first, second and third generation Japanese-Americans, but it is the most well-known because of Wakatsuki Houston’s book, first published a half-century ago.
Tracy Slater’s new book Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp not only tells an unusual story but also delves into the complexity of the people forced to live there during World War II.
Tracy Slater is not new to stories of Jewish-Japanese marriages.
Slater is not new to stories of Jewish-Japanese marriages; ten years ago she published a gripping memoir, The Good Shufu: Finding Love, Self, and Home on the Far Side of the World, about her marriage to a Japanese salaryman. In her new book, she writes a captivating narrative about Elaine Buchman Yoneda, and her second generation Japanese-American husband, Karl Yoneda, and their toddler son, Tommy, all of whom spent the better part of 1942 locked in Manzanar.
When Elaine and Karl meet in San Francisco, they are both steeped in American Communist activism. Elaine’s parents emigrate to the US from outside Minsk, fleeing the pogroms that caused two million Russian Jews to move to the US around the turn of the last century. Karl’s family is from Hiroshima and although he was born in the United States, he is a Kibei Nisei, or a second generation Japanese-American who moved to Japan as a child and spent some time there before moving back to the US. When the US government orders all Americans of Japanese descent to move into concentration camps in 1942, Karl signs up to help build the infrastructure there. He and other Japanese-Americans who volunteer are promised decent wages and that their families can delay their move to one of many concentration camps in desolate areas on the West Coast. Neither of these promises comes true.
Elaine has a daughter named Joyce from her first marriage to an Irish American she divorced after she became involved in Communist politics. When she receives a notice from the US government ordering three year-old Tommy to go to Manzanar, Elaine decides she will go with Tommy where they will reunite—and surprise—Karl there. But Elaine won’t bring Joyce and subject her to Manzanar’s severe confinement in the heat and dust of the desert near Death Valley.
Most of the book is set during the next nine months or so. Slater quotes from dozens of primary sources in her book, including a diary Elaine kept back then. Karl and Elaine were staunchly against fascism, both in Japan and in Europe. Karl campaigns for self-governance in Manzanar and hopes to enlist in the US military to fight the fascist Japanese military. These opinions are not always popular among some of the other Japanese-Americans confined at Manzanar; many feel betrayed by the US government and don’t want to help in their war efforts. Because Karl and Elaine are US patriots and will do anything to fight fascism, they face opposition from some of the other Japanese Americans they live among.
Elaine was similarly aware of how they stood out. She felt it most strongly in the stares as she and Karl went about their daily lives, particularly when they shared household duties. In a cultural tradition where housework was the exclusive domain of women, Karl made a point of bucking the trend. For laundry days, he’d arrange to have the same day off from work as she did. He’d hoist Tommy on his shoulders and carry both his son and his family’s washing across the block.
Tommy suffers from asthma and allergies and the dusty desert is terrible for his lungs. He’s in and out of the infirmary with a slew of diseases and illness easily contracted in confinement. Violence also breaks out when far-right militaristic groups at Manzanar take up arms against US patriots like Elaine and Karl. Karl always sees the best in people and is convinced that the demoralization and dehumanization of being locked behind barbed wire in inhumane conditions has turned rational people into violent hoodlums.
The architect of the Japanese-American concentration camp system was in fact Karl Bendetsen, himself of Lithuanian Jewish parentage.
Another fascinating part of the book is the narrative about another Karl involved with Manzanar. The architect of the Japanese-American concentration camp system was in fact Karl Bendetsen, himself of Lithuanian Jewish parentage; he changed his name in 1942 and obscured his family’s origins.
Slater also discusses the terms that have been used for Manzanar and the other Japanese American concentration camps during the war. People have used the word internment or relocation centers, but those don’t do justice to how Japanese Americans were robbed of dignity and humanity.
The euphemism embraced by Hitler, to obscure the truth of his camps, had by now transmuted in the public consciousness. It had become a synecdoche of sorts, a single term encompassing the greatest, grisliest crime in history—a crime in which the US government, following the narrative of World War II in America’s collective memory, had come to a heroic rescue. As a result, the true, actual name for camps like Manzanar—widely called both “concentration camps” and the more euphemistic “relocation centers” during the war—receded further. Such a recession, perhaps inadvertently, robbed former Japanese American incarcerees, their families, and their descendants—as well as all Americans—of a crucial term for our shared past.
The parallels to today’s political divisiveness, the scapegoating of immigrants, separation of families and setting aside the rule of law are all too self-evident.
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