From Farewell to Manzanar

Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of one Japanese- American familys experience living in an internment camp during World War II. This excerpt describes what happens immediately after they first arrive at Manzanar War Relocation Center. At the dinner time, because of the mess halls werent completed yet, an outdoor chow line snaked around a half-finished building that broke a food part of wind. For the dinner, the Caucasian servers give them Vienna sausage, canned string beans, steamed rice, and a serving canned apricots. They think it will be good. But, Japanese never eat the rice with sweet foods. They only eat rice with salty or savory foods. But at the time, no one dared protest. After dinner, they go to Block 16, a cluster of fifteen barracks. They sat on concrete footings. Gaps showed between the planks, the gaps widened. Knotholes gaped in the uncovered floor. Each barracks was divided into six units, sixteen by twenty feet, about the size of a living room, with one bulb and oil stove for heat. There are twelve people in the narrow room. Before they sleep, they have to divide up what space they had for sleeping. At the first night I Block 16, the rest of us squeezed into the second roomGranny, Lillian, Ray, May, Kiyo, Mama and me. Being the youngest meant I got to sleep with Mama. The boys had stuffed so much straw into hers, we had to flatten it some so we wouldnt slide off. When they woke, dust that had blown up through the knotholes and slits around the doorway covered them. Before they have breakfast, they covered the knotholes with lids. Mama was very sad, she dont like to live at the place. Because they cant live like that. Animals live like that.