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Examples Of Prejudice In Farewell To Manzanar

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Mark Twain once said, “The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.” Even as we as a globalized society have improved greatly, prejudice appears far too often and is expressed everywhere even in today’s world. During World War 2, prejudice was peaking in society. In Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatuski Houston and James D. Houston, the main theme is that silent prejudice hurts the most. Wakatsuki avoids portraying open racism and prejudice in the book in order to examine he subtle and often unspoken prejudices that occur everyday life, which are often the most hurtful. Overt hatred for which the Japanese Americans have prepared themselves for never materializes. This imagined hatred shows the rarity of open hatred compared to subtle acts of prejudice. In fact, by imagining that all of white America will hate them, these Japanese Americans are accepting overt racism prejudice without it ever occurring. The wrong belief that …show more content…

“‘Gee, I didn’t know you could speak English’’ (113). Radine’s innocent surprise at Jeanne’s ability to speak English, for example, makes Jeanne realize that prejudice is not always a conscious choice but that it can also be a result of conditioning by one’s parents and culture. Radine judges from Jeanne’s Japanese appearance that she shouldn’t be able to speak English, because Radine’s family or culture has taught her to do so. Jeanne’s reaction is described as, “She was genuinely amazed. I was stunned. How could this have even bee win doubt?” (113). She is shocked to discover that people do not really look to see who she is as a person but instead instantly judge her as a foreigner and paint her with the traits they imagine all Japanese people have. Confrontations like these are the prejudices that truly eat away a person and hurt a person

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