Teaching Farewell to Manzanar

Instructions for You

Objective: How do you say you're sorry to thousands of innocent people for forcing them out of their homes and into crudely built camps surrounded by barbed wire? Do you call your local radio station and dedicate Nirvana's "All Apologies" to the entire West Coast? Do you send a dozen roses? A text message that reads, "Sorry… my bad"? Do you wait nearly fifty years and send anyone who's still alive a check for $20,000? That's exactly how the U.S. government apologized to the Japanese-Americans who were interned during WWII.

For this activity, students will offer their apologies to either Jeanne or Mama for the suffering they endured at Manzanar. Don't worry; you won't have to lend them $20,000 each (although we know you'd love to)—it isn't the government that's apologizing this time. Instead it's Papa. Students will take a walk in his shoes and write a letter of apology for acting like a maniac after being released from Fort Lincoln.

What was it about Fort Lincoln that turned Papa into a violent, abusive drunk? He never really talks about it, but we found someone who did. Toyojiro Suzuki, a fisherman from Terminal Island, kept a diary of day-to-life at this camp set up just for "enemy aliens" like himself and Papa. Little did Suzuki know that it would one day end up on the Internet.

Suzuki writes about the monotony and loneliness of being confined, freezing in the sub-zero temperatures common in Bismarck, North Dakota, and not having enough to eat. Was it the physical environment of Fort Lincoln that turned Papa into a violent drunk? Was it what Jeanne describes as the "disgrace" and "humiliation" of being charged with disloyalty that pushed him over the edge? Perhaps it was a combination of the two? We'll leave that for your students to decide.

You'll need to set aside a few days for this project. They'll need to read Suzuki's diary, which is pretty long (luckily someone was nice enough to highlight the more interesting details), and then write and edit their letters.

Materials Needed: Access to Suzuki's diary; the Diary Entry Chart (included as a handout); lined paper or word processors for letter writing

Step 1: Ask students what comes to mind when they hear the word "setting." If they only respond with "when and where a story takes place," have them dig a little deeper. Help them understand that setting also refers to the time of day, time of year, a particular region of the country, the weather, objects, and even the customs and beliefs of the people living there.

Step 2: Remind students that when Papa is reunited with his family after spending nine months at Fort Lincoln, he is a different man. Jeanne says that while the change in his physical appearance is shocking, it's the change in his behavior that's most frightening. Let students know that their job is to figure out how the setting of Fort Lincoln brought out the uglier side of Papa.

Step 3: Prep students by letting them know they're going to read the highlighted parts of a diary kept by a man who was also imprisoned at Fort Lincoln. Like Papa, Toyojiro Suzuki was a fisherman from Terminal Island who was taken by the FBI because he was seen as a threat to the U.S. Since the diary is over sixty pages long, it might be good to divide the class into groups and assign each group ten pages to tackle.

Step 4: Hand out the Diary Entry Chart and tell students to keep track of the words and phrases Suzuki uses to describe the physical, social, and emotional environment of Fort Lincoln. Hook students up with Suzuki's diary (either by having them hop online or by distributing print-outs).

Step 5: Once everyone has finished reading and recording, students are going to GOGOMO—you know, "Give One, Get One, and Move On." Using this popular strategy for student discourse, students will share a diary entry from their chart with a student from a different group, get one in return, and then move on to another person. Students repeat the process until each box of the Diary Entry Chart has been filled in.

Step 6: Work with the class as a whole to decide what should go in a letter of apology. We're talking more than a text message of a blushing face emoji here. Help them come up with the following list that's bound to make Miss Manners proud:

• Use the words "I'm sorry" and mention the specific behavior(s) you're apologizing for.
• Explain why you acted the way you did (without making excuses for the behavior).
• Mention what you could have done differently (how could you have handled the situation appropriately).
• Empathize with the reader ("I feel your pain…")
• Ask for forgiveness.
• End on a positive note (explain how you'll act differently next time).

Remind students that the tone of the letter should be sincere and reflective. If you think a brush-up on letter format is in order, take a second to break down your expectations for your students.

Step 6: Encourage students to proofread their letters for spelling, capitalization, grammar, and logic, or have them swap papers with a peer.

Instructions for Your Students

Objective: It took nearly fifty years, but in 1988 the U.S. government formally apologized to the people of Japanese ancestry who were sent to internment camps during WWII. For this activity, you are going to write a letter of apology as well. You're probably thinking Why me? I didn't do anything wrong! I wasn't even born yet! Well, the letter isn't going to be from you… it's going to be from Papa, to either Jeanne or Mama, apologizing for the tantrums he threw when he first got to Manzanar.

According to Jeanne, Papa never talked about the time he spent at Fort Lincoln but she's pretty sure that "something terrible had happened to him" there that turned him into a violent, abusive drunk.

While we may never know exactly what Jeanne's father went through, another "enemy alien" spilled the beans. You'll read excerpts from the diary of Toyojiro Suzuki to see what daily life was like for those held captive and figure out how it might have affected Papa's mental stability.

Step 1: Your teacher will divide the class into small groups and assign each group a specific section of Suzuki's diary to read. Stick to the highlighted portions only.

Step 2: Use the Diary Entry Chart to keep track of the words and phrases Suzuki uses to describe the physical, social, and emotional environment of Fort Lincoln. Don't worry if you can't fill in every box on the chart—your classmates will help you with that. Go team.

Step 3: After each group has finished reading and recording, your teacher will tell you that it's time to get up and GOGOMO. That's teacher speak for "Give One, Get One, and Move On." You'll give one entry from your chart to a student from a different group, get one entry in return, and then move on to another person. Repeat the process until you have a few examples for each section of the chart.

Step 4: Now that you have a better sense of what Suzuki experienced at Fort Lincoln, think about how this environment may have affected Papa. Consider what he was like before he was imprisoned there. Jeanne describes him as "a poser, a braggart, and a tyrant." Did being held at Fort Lincoln change him, or did it just magnify the jerk he already was?

Step 5: Your teacher will lead a whole group discussion about what to include in a letter of apology. You'll need to explain why you yelled and screamed, threw chairs, and pushed poor little Granny across the room when you first arrived at Manzanar. You'll also need to express regret for your behavior in a way that shows you really mean it (so, not the way you say "sorry" and roll your eyes when your parents make you apologize to your brother for taking his stuff without permission).

Step 6: Draft your letter to either Jeanne or Mama.

Step 7: Proofread your letter for spelling, grammar, capitalization and all that other good stuff, or ask a classmate to look it over for you.