Bishop - Remembering Manzanar’s past as a World War II internment camp

A photo of Manzanar Internment Camp taken from a guard tower by Ansel Adams in 1943. The picture ran with the caption: “It lies on the bronze sage-covered plain, a city built on shacks and patience.” The photo appears in a recently published book of Adams’ photos of Manzanar, “Suffering Under a Great Injustice.” Photo by Ansel Adams, courtesy of the Library of Congress

This weekend marks the 40th year that hundreds of pilgrims will make the expedition to the Owens Valley to remember and pay homage to the nearly 10,000 Japanese Americans who were interned at the one-square mile patch of barren land at the base of Mt. Williamson, just south Independence, known as Manzanar.
The Los Angeles-based Manzanar Committee is sponsoring the 40th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage to be held Saturday, April 25, with events at the camp and in Independence.
The pilgrimage started on a cold day in December 1969 when about 150 young Japanese Americans came looking for the infamous camp. Those first pilgrims acquired an appreciation for the internees and what it must have been like for them in the desert as the pilgrims got a taste of the relentless winds and frigid temperatures of the Owens Valley in winter. For them, it was their first “pilgrimage,” but, for the late Rev. Sentoku Maeda and Rev. Shoichi Wakahiro, both Issei ministers, it was their 25th such journey, returning every year since the camp was dismantled in November 1945.

The committee was founded in 1969 by Sue Kunitomi Embrey, who was instrumental in efforts to both preserve and give the site the recognition it deserves.
In 1972, Manzanar was declared a California State Historic Site thanks to efforts led by the committee. In 1985, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service designated Manzanar a National Historic Landmark.
In 1992, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 that led to the internments, Congress designated Manzanar a National Historic Site.
The camp was built by the Department of Justice and opened on June 1, 1942, just a scant six months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and just months after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942.
Executive Order 9066 states that “for protection against espionage and against sabotage to national defense material and premises,” the president authorized the secretary of war to “designate … or prescribe military areas from which any or all persons may be excluded” and also authorizes the secretary to provide food and lodging for residents of such areas.
This exclusion of certain areas resulted in the internment of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast, as well as German and Italian Americans from the East Coast and Midwest.

These 10 internment camps for Japanese Americans, once called “concentration camps” by FDR himself in 1944, were scattered throughout the West and Arkansas. The Manzanar site is one of the only camps still maintained and researched for historical significance.
In the early years of the 20th century, the town of Manzanar and the Manzanar Irrigated Farms tract were home to a very productive apple orchard. Manzanar is the Spanish word for apple orchard. Then, when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began purchasing ranches and transporting water out of the Owens Valley, the trees began to die and the land eventually turned fallow.
The Department of Justice leased the square mile of land from DWP following Order 9066, and proceeded to build some 800 buildings, including 500 barracks shoved into 36 blocks that would go to house more than 10,000 internees, mostly from Southern California.
Among these buildings were fire stations, hospitals, schools and the only internment camp orphanage, “Children’s Village.” The camp was also outfitted with eight guard towers staffed by military police armed with sub-machine guns. One of the towers was rebuilt and now stands adjacent to U.S. 395 near the entrance to the newly restored Interpretive Center.
In January 1943, during the heart of World War II, FDR signed an order that allowed Japanese American internees to join the service. But this required the internees to sign allegiance to the U.S. and would prevent them from ever visiting Japan again.
In May 1943, 1,500 mainland internees and more than 3,000 Hawaiian internees enlisted, forming the Japanese American-only squad, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. In two years, the 442nd had earned more than 18,000 individual decorations and medals of achievement.
This year’s pilgrimage celebration will include a return of the Taiko drummers, poetry readings and a discussion from keynote speaker Ron Wakabayashi, regional director for the Department of Justice Community Relations Services. He has been a life-long supporter of civil rights since his family was interned in Nevada. Wakabayashi was also one of those first 150 that made the first pilgrimage in 1969.
This year’s pilgrimage will also premiere the short film, “Manzanar – Never Again,” by award-winning documentarian Ken Burns.
A complete listing of pilgrimage activities will be featured in the Thursday, April 23 edition of The Inyo Register, and is also available at www.nps.gov/manz or at www.manzanarcommittee.org.