Manzanar

Not too far north of Lone Pine, California is a national historical site called Manzanar.  Once an area of farms and ranches (it’s named from the Spanish word for apple orchard), in 1942 it became a “war relocation center” where more than 10,000 Japanese Americans were housed in 504 hastily-built barracks.  They were allowed to bring only what they could carry with them, leaving all the rest of their lives behind, either abandoned or sold at well below their worth.

I went to Manzanar thinking it would be an interesting visit, but it turned out to be emotionally moving, as well.  The 500 acre housing section of the camp was surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.  The barracks couldn’t keep out the summer heat, winter cold, or dust from wind storms.  The internees made the best of their situation and built gardens, ran a dojo, Buddhist temples, a newspaper, stores and a school.  They had highschool cheerleaders, sports, musical programs, and dances.  A major occupation in the camp was making camouflage netting for the war effort.  Some of the young men enlisted in the military and had to return to the internment camp if they wanted to visit their families.  Manzanar War Relocation center was closed in 1945.  The residents were not allowed to return to their original homes, but resettled elsewhere.

The site itself is mainly row after row of foundations of the barracks and other buildings.  There is a graveyard just outside the barbed wire, and a little pet graveyard to the side of that (internees were not allowed to bring their pets with them, but adopted mice, lizards and stray cats at the camp).  There is an interpretive center in the big auditorium building that was built in 1944, and a barracks is being reconstructed, and one guard tower has also been reconstructed.  It’s hard to imagine, looking at the mostly empty, rather desolate area, that once it was a good-sized city with block after block of buildings and many inhabitants.  The day we were there, the wind was rushing through the bushes and trees, blowing around the dust and the paper origami cranes that are left in the graveyard to honour the dead.  What must this place have looked like to the people that were torn from all they knew and suddenly dropped here in this remote, harsh landscape?  Imagining it saddens me….