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Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

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Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

Writer (b. September 26, 1934)

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, co-author of the acclaimed Farewell to Manzanar, was born in 1934 in Inglewood, California. The youngest of ten children, she spent her early childhood in Southern California until 1942 when she and her family were incarcerated at the World War II concentration camp at Manzanar, California.

In 1945, the family returned to Southern California where they lived until 1952 when they moved to San Jose, California. Houston was the first in her family to earn a college degree. She met James D. Houston while attending San Jose State University. They married in 1957 and have three children.

In 1971, a nephew who had been born at Manzanar asked Houston to tell him about what the camp had been like because his parents refused to talk about it. She broke down as she began to tell him, so she decided instead to write about the experience for him and their family. Together with her husband, Houston wrote Farewell to Manzanar. Published in 1972, the book is based on what her family went through before, during, and after the war. It has become a part of many school curricula to teach students about the Japanese American experience during WWII. It was made into a made-for-television movie in 1976 that won a Humanitas Prize and was nominated for an Emmy in the category of Outstanding Writing in a Drama.

Since Farewell to Manzanar, Houston has continued to write both with her husband and on her own. In 2003, her first novel, The Legend of Fire Horse Woman was published. She also provides lectures in both university and community settings. In 2006, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston received the Award of Excellence for her contributions to society from the Japanese American National Museum.


Profile

  • About the author of Farewell to Manzanar (CliffsNotes.com)
Introduction,
Jeanne's Early Years
Back to Normal Life
Dual Careers



Works

Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1973)

"Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of a Japanese-American family's confinement in California's Manzanar internment camp during World War II. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston was seven when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and created the hysteria that forced 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes. She remembers the stress of camp life—the stripping away of dignity and privacy, the withering of parental authority, and the divisive pressure to sign loyalty oaths. She also recalls what she took away from Manzanar after it closed—an odd sense of shame and a fierce determination to be accepted as American." (Excerpt from Novel Guides: Farewell to Manzanar)
  • Book review with teaching ideas. (University of Texas Library)
  • Lesson plans
Supplemental unit to Farewell to Manzanar (Schools of California Online Resources for Educators)
Literary Discussion Guide (California State University, Northridge)
CliffsNotes site for Farewell to Manzanar
Novel Guides: Farewell to Manzanar (Class zone)


The Legend of Fire Horse Woman (Kensington, 2003)

"Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's collaboration with her husband, James D. Houston, is commonly the first introduction that many American children, adolescents, and adults have to Japanese American history and details about their incarceration during World War II. The Houstons' influence as teachers of history has been far-reaching, and now Ms. Wakatsuki Houston is extending her reach as a writer with the recent publication of her first fictional work, The Legend of Fire Horse Woman." (Excerpt from Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's The Legend of Fire Horse Woman)

Other resources

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