Throughout Farwell to Manzanar Jeanne’s view of her own race and racial identity changes. Before the attack from the Japanese at Pearl Harbor life for the Wakatsuki family was pleasant and peaceful. In 1941 the family had been living in Ocean Park because of George Ko’s, “papa”, line of work. Papa was a licensed fisherman who had two boats on Terminal Island’s port that he was captain of. The Wakatsuki family was the only Japanese family living in Ocean Park. Since Jeanne was so young at the time, she identified more as American than Japanese. She did not have much interaction with Japanese people other than her family. Papa would threaten the young children with, “I’m going to sell you to the Chinaman” to get them to act right. This taught them that being Oriental was a bad thing, which created a great …show more content…
She lived among them, spoke with them, and went to school with them. Her family was given a number that would be their identification for the remainder of their stay. Their lives became a mind numbing routine, but the family started to separate. It was in her time in Manzanar that she got over her fear of Orientals and started to see all the amazing variety surrounding her. The Maryknoll sisters drew her eye. She wasn’t getting enough attention from her mother or family so she searched it out in other sources. Stories of the Catholic saints were more appealing to her than the Buddhist religion the Japanese people embraced. She would have become one of them, but her father had arrived at the internment camp right before her baptism and stopped her. She returned to the Maryknolls after her venturing of other activities. What drew her to them this time was being the attention she would get and the elaborate ceremony of a baptism or confirmation. Her father again disapproved of her joining the Catholic religion. Jeanne was too ashamed to return to the church after