Slideshow photos: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cANpWdepUbGjdSD-3BZmkyT2rUegNPfU/view?usp=sharing
I traveled to Manzanar this week, which I have driven by a few times, but had never toured. I used the map to explore the exhibits. I learned about some of the conditions in which families faced when arriving at Manzanar. The "housing" was bare, scorpions everywhere, sand and other natural elements in every corner, limited access to toilets, and crowded sleeping arrangements. As I toured, I felt anger at the racist and inhumane treatement of Japanese Americans and at the same time awe at the hard work of the incarcerated Japanese families to turn a desert into a community. It would be powerful to take a field trip with 5th grade students here, however, that is not likely to happen due to the long distance. The following aspects of Manzanar that stood out to me were: the schools, the community garden, the recreational spaces, and the orchards.
I learned that students graduated from Manzanar and went on to colleges and careers. However, in the early days in Manzanar, there were not schools, and it became a priority when children were struggling with the harsh conditions of their incarceration. The task of providing education was taken up incarcerated Japanese educators and WRA staff. WRA teachers were paid over 10 times as much as their incracerated counterparts. This type of treatment was the norm at Manzanar.
The park called Merritt Park was built in 1943 and was designed by Kuichiro Nishi, an internee landscape designer, to lift the spirits of the community. It was 1.5 acres filled with trees, paths, waterways, and flowers. The photographer Ansel Adams captured its beauty, but all that remains are the uncovered stones and structures. After the camp was closed, the government covered it in dirt and sand. However, in 2008, Nishi's family helped to uncover the park! It would be amazing to compare the Ansel Adams photograph with the current state of the park with students.
In addition to the schools and gardens, there were basketball courts, a baseball field, and recreational halls. These spaces were critical to the children and adults in building social connections and finding leisure in the context of this internment camp. Accordining to one display, the love of baseball was very high and that prevailed throughout the period of incarceration. To be clear, it is a testament to the wrongfully incarcerated Japanese Americans that these spaces were built.
One of the central areas of the camp included an orchard. The trees are still there today! One of the many jobs of detainees was farming and harvesting. While walking through the orchard, I wondered about the undisclosed profits that the government recieved from underpaying Japanese workers to run this orchard along with other products manufactured at the camp.
In sumary, I found the tour to be extremely unsettling because of the actions of the US government and WRA staff in forcing 10,000 Japanese American families to move to Manzanar. However, it was an overall important experience for me. I believe the interactive nature of the Manzanar Historic Monument is condusive to supporting students' understanding of WWII's war hysteria and the race prejudice that went into the unjustfied and irreparable creation of Japanese Internment camps in America. In order to honor the people that suffered in Manzanar (and other camps), it is important to preserve Manzanar and not sugar-coat the experience of the wrongly incarcerated.
.
