Growing out of a crucial test of American democracy and world order, Farewell to Manzanar functions on several levels: As a slice of history, the book epitomizes the status of civil rights as viewed by people who lose freedoms from 1941 to 1945 for the sake of national security. Working from nonfiction data, Jeanne and James Houston recreate nonjudgmental pictures of California citizens terrorized by an enemy attack on the Hawaiian islands. Knowing that the West Coast could be the next target, local people raise no cry against FBI agents who arrest likely collaborators, particularly Jeanne's father, whose job takes him by private boat beyond the coast, where he could easily contact the Japanese military and pass on fuel or information about Terminal Island, a spit of land shared by Japanese-American residents and the U.S. Navy.
A serious theme imbedded in the furor and insecurity resulting from the bombing of Pearl Harbor consists of three questions:
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Who has rights?
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What must the government do to protect those rights?
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What must the government do to prevent the Asian-American segment of the population from violating U.S. loyalties in order to satisfy loyalty to the Old Country?
