Manzanar National Historic Site, Eastern Sierras, California, December 27-28, 2016

Manzanar National Historic Site, Eastern Sierras, California, December 27-28, 2016

with Indra, Alex, & Kiran

To learn more about Manzanar, I recommend these sites:

National Park Service: https://www.nps.gov/manz/index.htm  

NPS online Manzanar Museum:  https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/manz/index.html

Ken Burns mini-documentary: https://blog.manzanarcommittee.org/2009/07/18/manzanar-never-again-released-video-by-ken-burns/

"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."  Google attributes that famous maxim to at least three possible figures.  Wait, aren't we already repeating it? (<-- a 1927 film history moment, a sound sync experiment.)    Where do we stop the train?

Hopefully before we reach the point of what we did to Japanese Americans during World War II.  I would say "long before," but clearly we have already past that marker with pledges of walls, registries...

Something we didn't learn much about growing up on the East Coast was the Japanese internment camps--the term concentration camps is debated--here in the West.  After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the FBI started rounding up Japanese immigrants, their American born kids, and their kids' kids.  More than half of the people in the internment camps were second and third generation American citizens.  (Gee, no one like that in MY family, eh?)  And they were completely innocent. 

Our entourage could have made a good Visitor Experience poster for Manzanar at the dawn of the Trump-Pence era:   an Arab-American (me), her Jewish friend since high school, his Mexican-born girlfriend, and his 9-year-old son with a mom from Southeast Asia. "Er, how worried to we have to be?"   The visitors' center was surprisingly crowded for a place so remote, so I guess a lot of people were thinking along these same lines.
 

Here is one of the things that struck me most:  Back then, rational people said the round ups and camps could never happen.  The Constitution would protect people.  This is America.

This was the counter point: (CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE):

"You may think that the Constitution is your security--it is nothing but a piece of paper...it is nothing at all, unless you have sound and uncorrupted public opinion."

close up...

And with that intro,  I present our trip to Manzanar, ONE OF ***TEN*** JAPANESE INTERMENT CAMPS IN THE WEST.  We spent about 2 hours over our two days in the visitors' center, which contains remarkably well designed exhibits.   Unfortunately I did not capture any of the immersive audio for you.  

On our second day (which was warmer), we also spent about 3 hours exploring the barracks, mess hall, gardens, grounds.  

CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

The roots of racism...

Politicians and labor leaders stir fear of "outsiders" taking jobs away from white people 

(click to read larger)

Visitors can select ID tags of detainees and follow their story through the exhibits.

Below is the story of a newspaper editor.

a sample classroom

What happened if you went outside the fence?  You got shot.

Orders for those Americans of Japanese ancestry...

What my mom would hate most -- no privacy!  Even in the loo.

(click image to enlarge and read)

President Harry Truman

Get this -- after Japanese-American people were rounded up, they were required to enlist in the army to serve the country that confined them to pens like animals!  Some people rebelled and said, um, excuse me?!?!?!  Most of those were convicted of draft evasion.  Other people wanted to show how loyal and patriotic they were, despite mistreatment.

Scale model of the camp.

Continuing outside...

watch tower

one of my favorite shots of the trip

mess hall

Many landscape architects and designers in LA were of Japanese descent.  It was trendy for people in LA to want Japanese-style gardens.  With so many designers in the camps, you would be right to deduce that they built a lot of gardens to make their lives more bearable.  They used what materials they could find at hand.  Here is what remains, out in the desert.

barren landscape

the orchards...

The cemetery, with origami offerings.  

Only six graves are still here because families moved bones to cemeteries that were not so fraught with complicated memories.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. 

"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."  
The Constitution "...is nothing at all, unless you have sound and uncorrupted public opinion." So share this page widely.