 Inyo County’s first Community Reads project will take on “Farewell to Manzanar,” one girl’s story of coming of age behind the barbed-wire fences of Manzanar War Relocation Camp outside of Independence, and coming to terms with her experiences there. Photo courtesy Library of Congress By Mike Bodine
Register Staff
2-14-2009 It’s time for everyone to read.
The Inyo County Superintendent of Schools Office and the Inyo/Mono Community Reads Committee are asking the whole community to pick up a copy of “Farewell to Manzanar” and be a part of the first Community Reads Program.
According to Inyo County Superintendent of Schools Terry McAteer, “the concept behind the Community Reads program is to celebrate reading one book as an entire community.”
Inyo will be joining Mono County in reading the same book for the Community Reads Program. Mono County reported a huge success with its Community Reads selection of “Fahrenheit 451” last year. While this will be Inyo’s first year with the program, program coordinator Sondra Petersen said Inyo schools hope to make it an annual event.
The books, along with testing materials and a short film, will be available to classrooms and students throughout the area. Books for everyone else are available at bookstores or at Inyo Council for the Arts.
The event kicked off with a celebration at Yamatani Restaurant in Bishop Wednesday night that brought together many of Inyo and Mono counties’ educators, librarians, bookstore owners and elected officials.
McAteer told a packed house at the restaurant that they were all there to celebrate reading, “one of the greatest pleasures in life.”  Japanese American girls and older women doing calisthenics at Manzanar War Relocation Camp during World War II. Photo by Ansel Adams/courtesy Library of Congress
McAteer explained how important it is for the adults to participate in this program as well, to serve as role models to younger readers. He said that it is helpful for the schools, too; as students see adults reading they may be encouraged to read more themselves.
John Houston, one of the authors of “Farewell to Manzanar,” was unable to attend the kickoff dinner due to illness. According to McAteer, Houston has said he hopes to make it back to the Owens Valley soon.
The evening was also a chance for the new superintendent of Manzanar National Historic Site, Les Inafuku, to introduce himself.
Inafuku, a Japanese American, explained that he was looking forward to working at Manzanar. He also said that there are new archeological digs being done at the old camp and finds from those excavations along with some buildings from the Manzanar era will soon be on display at the site’s Interpretive Center.
Wednesday night’s celebratory kickoff was just the beginning of dozens of events, movie screenings and presentations about Japanese relocation during World War II that will conclude with the 40th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage on April 25.
Events begin this weekend, Feb. 14-16, at the Manzanar National Historic Site with presentations by former internees and author Shig Yabu and illustrator Willie Ito discussing their book, “Hello Maggie.” Bacon Sakatoni will also present an illustrated program about his experience as an internee as a teen at the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center in Wyoming.
A “Day of Remembrance” will be on Feb. 19. On that date in 1942, thousands of Japanese-Americans, just like the characters in the book, were removed from their homes on the West Coast and placed in camps during World War II. Dr. Art Hansen of Fullerton State University will discuss with Inyo County high school students the facts and constitutionality of the forced relocation.
Hansen will be joined by author Catherine Irwin on Feb. 20 from 7-8 p.m. at the Inyo Council for the Arts in Bishop and at Manzanar on Feb. 21 at 11 a.m. for a discussion of Irwin’s book, “Twice Orphaned.” The book discusses the “Children’s Village” at Manzanar, the only orphanage in a war relocation camp.
In March there will be screenings of Manzanar related films, offered for free at the ICA, every Tuesday night at 7 p.m.
The movies range from the Academy Award-winning documentary “Days of Waiting,” about Estelle Ishigo, a Caucasian who was voluntarily interned in Wyoming to avoid being separated from her Japanese-American husband, to the made-for-TV movie based on the book “Farewell to Manzanar.”
The paintings of Henry Fukuhara and other selected artists will be shown at both the Mammoth Ski Museum and at the ICA from March 16-27.
Former Manzanar Ranger and current Mono County Librarian Bill Michael will discuss “Farewell to Manzanar” on March 25 at 7 p.m. at the ICA.
On March 30, Independence resident, historian and author of two Manzanar related books Jane Wehrey, will discuss the oral history of Manzanar and its former residents.
In April, the Lone Pine Film History Museum will show the same films the ICA did in March, every Wednesday at 7 p.m. for free.
On April 1, at the Jill Kinmont Boothe School in Bishop, Sky Hatter and Manzanar Ranger Richard Potashin will be teaching the art of Japanese paper folding, or origami, and Japanese calligraphy.
The powerful and dramatic TAIKOPROJECT drummers will give two concerts, one on April 2 from 7-8 p.m. at the Lone Pine High School Auditorium, and the other April 3 from 7-8 p.m. at the Bishop Union High School Auditorium. These not-to-be-missed performances are tightly choreographed and loud, yet hypnotic.
From April 1-24, the ICA will present Japanese art projects from Inyo County students in conjunction with the annual Student Art Show.
Author Joanne Oppenheim will be signing books and discussing her recently published “Stanley Hayami, Nisei Son, His Diaries, Letters and Story from an American Concentration Camp to Battlefield, 1942-1945” at Manzanar on Saturday, April 25 from 3-4 p.m. and Sunday, April 26 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
April 25 is the 40th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage that brings together hundreds of former internees, family and friends, residents and students for the event that features guest speakers, music and a traditional Japanese Ondo community dance.
Further details about each event will be available in The Inyo Register as they become timely. A list of events is also available through the Manzanar Web site at www.nps.gov/manz.
“Farewell to Manzanar” is a memoir of Jeanne Wakatsuki as a child with her family in the Manzanar Relocation Camp south of Independence from 1942-45.
The story recounts the hideous living conditions at the camp told through the eyes of a young girl, and the defiance of the family to the racism and eventually their traditional cultural values.
A review in The New York Times Book Review from 1973, the year of book’s release, reads “. . . (this) book provides an often vivid, impressionistic picture of how the forced isolation affected the internees. All in all, a dramatic, telling account of one of the most reprehensible events in the history of America’s treatment of its minorities.”
As first book chosen for Inyo County’s Community Reads project, “Farewell to Manzanar” may not be light reading, but it’s a subject project organizers don’t feel can be ignored, either.
“We don’t always want to celebrate the past, especially the darker times, “ McAteer concluded Wednesday evening, “but it teaches us lessons as Americans.”
|
