Manzanar National Historic Site, Independence, California

At 9 am in mid-June, the sun already blasted the valley in eastern California. I walked through the 90 degree heat to the visitors’ center as dust devils swirled across the desert. A Park ranger raised the flag as I went by, inviting me to go into one of the NPS’s sites of conscience. This harsh land reflects the harsh deeds done in time of a national emergency.

Japanese Americans arriving in Manzanar 1942 (From Visitor's Center exhibit)

Right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, some Japanese-American families at Long Beach, California received visits from the FBI. For teenager Mike Miyagashima, his father did not return from his fishing boat on December 7.[1] Mike did not see his father for 18 months. To legalize the detention without due legal process of American citizens, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. Eventually, over 100,000 people of Japanese descent were imprisoned in camps like Manzanar and in Minidoka NHS (which I wrote about on June 3rd). In short, Japanese-American citizens (Nisei) and Japanese immigrants (Issei) along the West Coast were rounded up in the spring of 1942 and incarcerated at “internment” camps. Surrounded by barbed wire and watch towers and patrolled by armed guards, these camps detained citizens and immigrants of Japanese ancestry because they looked like the enemy and their loyalty to the U.S. was doubted.

Anti-Japanese sentiment (Photo from exhibit at Visitors' Center) 

Manzanar was one of ten official War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps used to carry out this detention mandated by Executive Order 9066. The Order eliminated the constitutional protections of due process for citizens and violated the Bill of Rights. Two-thirds of the 120,000 persons of Japanese descent incarcerated in American concentration camps were American citizens, an act that reflected decades of anti-Japanese discrimination and then war time propaganda.

Map of the 10 WRA camps (Map from exhibit)

The stories of the spirit of the incarcerated Japanese-Americans has filled volumes. Imprisoned without court trials with their families torn apart, these mainly citizens lost their land and businesses as they had to quickly liquidate their estates  before and rushing to the train station with only two suitcases. Some Californian fortunes today arose from the bargain priced acquisitions of productive farms and prosperous businesses.

In the movie “Remembering Manzanar” shown at the Visitors’ Center, one Japanese-American said: “It was just a devastating day for all of us. I will never forget. Because I looked like the enemy, I was treated like one.” Another internee speculated that “It must have been difficult for teachers to talk about democracy.”

Japanese American escorted to train for removal to camps
(From exhibit)

Forlorn boys on way to camps
(From exhibit)

Despite the wrenching apart of families who then arrived at camps not yet completed, the internees created mini-cities with many amenities of a normal town. Active farms, retail shops, sports leagues, schools, and recreation halls filled the uncertainties of enforced detention. At both Minidoka and Manzanar, perhaps unbeknownst to each other, the internees created vibrant communities and responded to their prisons in various ways.

Some young men joined the U.S. Army. Six thousand Nisei served in the Military Intelligence Service translating Japanese communications. More than 10,000 more Nisei served in the 100^th Infantry Battalion and the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team of the Army which fought in some of the fiercest action in Europe as they slogged up the Italian mountains in 1944. The Japanese Americans in the  442^nd received more combat awards than any other unit of its size in the Army. In praise of the men who fought in the 442^nd, General George C. Marshall said: “They were superb!.... They took terrific casualties. They showed rare courage and tremendous fighting spirit. Not too much can be said of the performance of those battalions in Europe and everybody wanted them….”[2] Not enough can be said about these Japanese-Americans who fought for a country which had imprisoned them and their families.

Japanese Americans fighting in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in France late 1944.
(Photo from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/442_regimental_combat_team.jpg

Back at the homefront, Manzanar residents made the best of a bad situation. Four thousand people worked at the camp as clerks, chemists, nurses, doctors, accountants, teachers, fire fighter, switchboard operators, and camouflage net makers. At a building in the camp, five hundred people turned out thousands of camouflage nets a month to support the war effort.

Love also flourished as 188 couples married at Manzanar, and 541 babies were born there. For this small city, the 250 bed hospital was the largest one between Los Angeles and Reno. And like at Minidoka, people played the all American sport of baseball.

Playing baseball at Manzanar (From exhibit)

As usual, I arrived at Manzanar without an appointment. I asked to talk with the Chief Interpreter and heard that she was busy. I went through the excellent exhibit and watched the film at the visitors’ center and then asked again. A few minutes later, I met Alisa Lynch, who had broken off what she was doing to spend an hour with me. I’m richer for her time.

Alisa has been at Manzanr NHS for fourteen years, even before it officially opened. She spoke from her heart about the history as well as the continuing relationship that the place has with the people incarcerated here and their descendants. She told me that the site is “conserving history of people who don’t consider themselves part of history.” She talked about all the stories of the people who were here: “This is reminder that history is about real people. I carry 10,000 lives, 10,000 stories. We don’t think of government policies in terms of real people but you can walk here where they walked. We can’t totally recreate 10,000 people in 800 buildings, but history is always relevant.”

Alisa was especially proud of the exhibit on the No-No issue. The WRA had all the internees fill out a loyalty questionnaire. Question 27 asked if they would serve in the U.S. military, while question 28 asked if they would foreswear their allegiance to the Japanese emperor Hirohito. As Alisa noted, that’s like asking “how many of you have stopped beating your pet?” Many of the internees had no allegiance to Hirohito so could not foreswear something they never had. Others did not want to serve in the military of a country that violated their civil rights. So, those who answered “no” to both questions were called No-No Boys. Considered disloyal by the WRA, they were sent to the detention center at Tule Lake. At its height, Tule Lake held 18,000 internees guarded by  1,200 Military Police. Some No-Nos were deported to Japan during the war.  The staff and consultants at Manzanar used diaries, oral histories, and donated artifacts from incarcerated families to mount this exhibit on the No-Nos. To recognize the excellent research, interpretation, and installation of this exhibit, the Organization of American Historians in 2016 awarded Manzanar NHS and Park Rangers Patricia Biggs and Rose Masters the Stanton-Horton Award.

The award winning exhibit about the Loyalty Questionnaire (Photo by Hunner)

Manzanar closed on November 21, 1945. When they left, those incarcerated were given $20 and a bus ticket back to their home city. Because these internees had sold their houses,  businesses, farms in haste, many had no place to return to, and they spent decades rebuilding their lives. Today, an annual pilgrimage attended by up to 1,000 people keeps alive the memories of Manzanar.

In 1988, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act which paid former detainees $20,000. In signing the bill, President Ronald Reagan admitted that it was mistake to intern Japanese-Americans. He said: “When we violate that Constitution, we begin to unravel as a nation.” President George H.W. Bush’s apology letter sent to over 82,000 people contained the following: “A monetary sum and words alone cannot restore lost years or erase painful memories; neither can they fully convey our Nation’s resolve to rectify injustice and to uphold the rights of individuals…. But we can take a clear stand for Justice and recognize that serious injustices were done to Japanese Americans during World War II.”[3] The U.S. government has paid over $1,200,000,000 to the former detainees.

Manzanar’s auditorium (today’s visitors’ center) was built by camp residents. It held 1,280 seats and after the war, served as the Inyo County road maintenance shop for forty years. The NPS bought it from the county in 1996, and after a $3,500,000 renovation, the Manzanar NHS opened on April 24, 2004. Almost 100,000 people visited Manzanar last year.

As I left Manzanar and drove through the dry Owens Lake valley on my way to Death Valley, large dust devils buffeted my rig. This is a harsh land.

The Cemetery at Manzanr (Photo by Hunner)

[1] Interview with Mike Miyagashima by Jon Hunner at Las Cruces, NM.

[2] Accessed at the “the422.org” website, July 18, 2016.

[3] Letter from President George H.W. Bush reprinted in Park brochure.