Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston - 1934
James D. Houston - 1933
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San Pedro High School in San Pedro, California
I. Biography
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston was born in Inglewood, California on September 26, 1934. She grew up in Southern California until 1942 when she and her family were evacuated after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. They were stripped from their home and taken to Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp. Jeanne, the youngest of the Wakatsuki children, was seven at the time. Even though she was born in the U.S. and she spoke only English, Jeanne was taken to Manzanar and treated as if she was a foreigner or an enemy of the United States.
The family spent the next three years in the camp, attempting to live a "normal" life behind barbed wire and under the watch of armed guards in searchlight towers. She was involved with many activities in the camp such as the Girls' Glee Club, talent shows, baton twirling, and school. Several years after leaving the camp in 1945, Jeanne went to San Jose St. College where she studied sociology and journalism. She met her husband, James, there and they married in 1957. She also attended Sorbonne University in Paris. Besides writing, Jeanne has worked as a group worker and a probation officer in San Mateo, California. Jeanne later decided to tell her story about the time she spent in Manzanar in Farewell to Manzanar , co-authored with her husband, James D. Houston.
James D. Houston was born in San Francisco, California in 1933. He has published several novels, a collection of short stories, and a few non-fiction works. His books have earned a Wallace Stegner Writing Fellowship at Stanford, the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, and the Joseph Henry Jackson Award for Fiction in San Francisco. He attended San Jose St. College where he met Jeanne Wakatsuki, and Stanford University where he earned his M.A. James has taught at several universities including the University of California at Santa Cruz and Stanford. He and Jeanne have three children.
II. Literary Works
Farewell to Manzanar tells Jeanne's story of being taken from her home to go to a Japanese internment camp during World War II. It is not only about her experiences in the camp, but also about her family before and after the war. The book has been compared to The Diary of Anne Frank and is used in many classrooms in the United States to teach about the internment. It is co-authored by Jeanne.
A Native Son of the Golden West takes a look at important themes of the west in present-day settings. It is set mainly in Hawaii, but contains a symbolic migration to California where there exists a clash between the dreams and the realities of America.
Continental Drift examines the coexistence of the beauty and hope of the American West with violence and affliction.
In the Ring of Fire: A Pacific Basin Journey is an account of a trek through islands in the Pacific Ocean. Houston guides the tour in which he visits Japan, Hawaii, the Marianas, and the Ryukyus. It is travel writing that mixes together explanation of places as well as consideration of what links their past, present, and future.
III. Los Angeles, California and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
Until she left for Manzanar in 1942, Jeanne W. Houston had never been outside Los Angeles County. The following are places in the LA area that she mentions in Farewell to Manzanar:
Long Beach Naval Station - The station is on the opposite end of Terminal Island. It harbored U.S. battleships and other supplies crucial to the war effort. The people of Japanese ancestry were cleared from the area because the navy thought it was too dangerous to have them so close to the Naval Station during the war. The Naval Station in Long Beach closed in the mid-1990s and the fleet is now located in San Diego.
Terminal Island - There were many canneries on this man-made island during the time of the internment. Lots of people with Japanese ancestry were employed there. Today the island mainly receives imports from China and other Far-East countries. In the book, this is where the fishermen took off from. The women from Terminal Island would hurry off to the canneries when the boats came back from their trips.
The San Pedro Harbor - The San Pedro Harbor is in the Port of Los Angeles. She mentions the harbor when she speaks of the contracts that the fishermen had with the canneries.
Long Beach, CA - This city served as the headquarters of the United States Naval Fleet. It was also a main source of entertainment for sailors. "The Pike" was an entertainment zone that had a roller coaster, fortune-tellers, and dance halls. Jeanne visited the wharf in Long Beach to watch the boats.
Boyle Heights Ghett o- This was a minority ghetto in downtown LA that was mainly inhabited by Chicanos before the war. The Wakatsukis moved there after the eviction from Terminal Island. The Terminal Island refugees briefly inhabited the ghetto.
Cabrillo Homes - This was a housing project in West Long Beach built by the government for defense plant and shipyard workers. This is where the Wakatsukis moved after leaving Manzanar.
Inglewood, CA - This middle-class neighborhood, surrounded by LA, is where Jeanne's father bought farming land just before she was born. They lived here briefly before moving to Santa Monica.
IV. Works by James D. Houston
Between Battles (1968)
A Native Son of the Golden West (1971)
Farewell to Manzanar (1973)
Continental Drift (1978)
The Adventures of Charlie Bates (1980)
Eagle Song: An Indian Saga Based on True Events (1983)
Love Life (1985)
Gig (1988)
Californians: Searching for the Golden State (1993)
The Men in My Life: And Other More or Less True Recollections of Kinship (1994)
In the Ring of Fire: A Pacific Basin Journey (1997)
The Last Paradise: A Novel (Literature of the American West, Vol. 2) (1998)
V. Sources
Houston, James D. and Jeanne Wakatsuki. Farewell to Manzanar. San Francisco, CA. Bantam Books, 1973.
Siegel, Mark. "Contemporary Trends in Western American Fiction." 9 June 1999
http://www.tcu.edu/depts/prs/amwest/html/wl1182.htmlKirkus Associates, LP. 1997. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1562791001/qid=928973136/sr=1-2/002-1598059- 7270639
"Biographical Information for James D. Houston." http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/authorInfo.asp?authorCode=292865&userid= 3LKXXL9GLV&mscssid=XSRRH4RE3XS12M8S00CGNDBHFB1C83C9&pcount=0&srefer=
"Biographical Information for Jeanne W. Houston." http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/authorInfo.asp?authorCode=597510&userid= 3LKXXL9GLV&mscssid=XSRRH4RE3XS12M8S00CGNDBHFB1C83C9&pcount=0&srefer=
This essay was submitted by a student of Grant Farley, a teacher at San Pedro High School in San Pedro, California.