Manzanar - National Historic Site

Manzanar Monument and Star Trails

One of my favorite roadtrips to take is a run down Interstate 395 along the Eastern Sierra. Mono Lake, Galen Rowell's Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop, Death Valley and the former Manzanar Internment Camp (now a National Historic Site administered by the National Park Service) are all requisite stops. As a Japanese-American whose father spent several years of his childhood in the Poston internment camp, the Manzanar site has special meaning to me. In the days before the Park Service took it over, sleeping overnight at Manzanar near the monument was a ritual for me that had personal meaning.

Dirt and Sun

Manzanar is, on the one hand, a melancholy and barren place, but it is also set in a beautiful location - at least if you are not forced to live there through the dust, the heat and the cold in a tar paper shack. Those nights spent photographing star trails and sleeping alone by the monument always made me feel close to my father. I will never fully understand what it was like for him growing up behind barbed wire in the desert, but my Manzanar ritual was at least a way of connecting to the past, and to family history.

Reconstructed Guard Tower

As a child, I visited Poston a few times with my father, and while there wasn't too much to see, there used to be much more than there is now. When I was about 11 years old, I visited Poston with my father one the last time. I was shocked to see that Poston was little more than an antique generator shed slowly rotting and rusting in the middle of endless farm land. My father said that it was perhaps for the best, but I still fought back tears at the sense of loss. All of that history seemed to have disappeared forever. The idea that nobody remembered the injustice and hardships that were suffered by thousands of people, including my family, was intolerable. No one knew. No one cared. It seemed to be one final injustice.

Child's Grave - Manzanar Graveyard

There is even less left of Poston today, although a historical marker has at least been placed to inform those who stop about the history of the area. All of this makes me appreciate the efforts of the National Park Service to preserve Manzanar. They have restored or rebuilt several of the buildings, and have created a top-notch interpretive center in one of them. The staff members at the interpretive center have an impressive knowledge about the history of the site, and they do a great job of answering questions asked by visitors.

Manzanar Interpretive Center

The fact that at least one of the Japanese-American internment camps is being preserved is meaningful to people whose family members were stripped of their rights; who lost their homes, posessions and businesses; and who experienced this dark period of American history from inside of a barbed-wire enclosure. Their lives and their struggles have not been forgotten.

If you are interested in visiting or learning more about Manzanar, you can visit the official National Park Service site: http://www.nps.gov/manz/