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.
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.
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| Japanese Americans arriving in Manzanar 1942 (From Visitor's Center exhibit) |
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| Anti-Japanese sentiment (Photo from exhibit at Visitors' Center) |
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| Map of the 10 WRA camps (Map from exhibit) |
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.”
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| Japanese American escorted to train for removal to camps (From exhibit) |
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| 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 100th
Infantry Battalion and the 442nd 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 442nd received more combat awards than
any other unit of its size in the Army. In praise of the men who fought in the
442nd, 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.
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.
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| 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 |
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.
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| 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.
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.
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| The award winning exhibit about the Loyalty Questionnaire (Photo by Hunner) |
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.
