There is not much in Manzanar Relocation Center, other than the remnants of the old gymnasium and the foundations of the barracks that used to house the inhabitants of this wartime relocation camp. But where the cemetery was located, I started getting the very strange feeling that I was not alone.
I first visited the Manzanar Relocation Center on a hot summer day several years ago. It was late July, the sun blazing from a cloudless sky, as I drove my vehicle around the 6,000 acres of where the United States government interned approximately 10,000 people of Japanese heritage from March 1942 to November 1945. There was not much there, other than the remnants of the old gymnasium (since opened as an interpretation center), the guard house, and the foundations of the barracks that used to house the inhabitants of this wartime relocation camp. In the background were the majestic Sierra Nevada Mountains, with the highest peakMt.Whitneyat 14,495 feet (4,418 meters) of elevation.
After Japan bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, concerns about the loyalty of Japanese in America increased. By February of 1942, politicians, community leaders, and businessmen on the West Coast had put enough pressure on the White House for President Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 9066, authorizing the creation of military zones from which all civilians had to be removed.
There was no special mention of the Japanese, but the Order was applied in areas on the West Coast (not in Hawaii where the attack had occurred and where the numbers of Japanese Americans were higher) where there were heavy concentrations of this population. In the end, nearly 120,000 people of Japanese lineagemost of whom were American-born Nisei, and therefore, American citizenswere sent to ten relocation camps built and overseen by the military. Manzanar in Californias Owens Valley was one of the ten, its occupants coming mostly from the Los Angeles area, 225 miles to the south.
From assembly centers to relocation centers
Without due process, the government gave everyone of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast only days to decide what to do with their possessions. They did not know where they were going nor for how long. Each family received an identification number and they were loaded into cars, buses, trucks, and trains, taking only what they could carry. They were first transported, under military guard, to temporary assembly centers from which they were moved to the relocation centers once the military had finished constructing them. About two-thirds of those interned at Manzanar were American citizens by birth. The remainder were Japanese nationals, many of whom had lived in the United States for decades but who, by United States law, were denied citizenship.
In June of 1942, the War Relocation Authority took over the control of Manzanar and the other campsalthough not with much change in the daily routines. Barbed wire still surrounded the 500-acre housing section, and the eight guard towers with searchlights continued to look over the camp, patrolled by military police. Outside the fence, military police housing, a reservoir, a sewage treatment plant, and agricultural fields occupied the remaining 5,500 acres of the camp.
Education, newspapers, every day life
There was little privacy in the barracks, and the occupants shared showers, toilets, and the mess hall facilities. Recalls one resident: one of the hardest things to endure was the communal latrines, with no partitions; and showers with no stalls. But people also tried to make the best of their situation. They continued to educate their children, to share holidays and traditions, to publish newspapers. They participated in sports, established clubs, and started churches and temples. And beginning in 1943, American-born Nisei began leaving Manzanar; many young men volunteered in the armed forces and served as part of the all-Nisei 44d Regimental Combat Team.
Several Japanese Americans challenged the detention in the courts. In 1944, the Supreme Court of the United States decided, in a 6-3 vote, to uphold the constitutionality of the exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast regions. The Court cited the war with Japan and the military necessity perceived by Congress and military leaders as the reasons for this decision.
It was not until 1988 that the internees still alive received reparations for their economic losses and an apology for the infringement on their civil liberties guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States. The Civil Rights Act of 1988 concludes that "the broad historical causes [of the internment] were racial prejudice, war hysteria and failure of political leadership." Powerful words that still ring true as the nation continues to debate civil liberties and the Constitution in another time of war.
My visit to Manzanar ended with a strong reminder of how the past continues to live among us. As I reached the corner of the camp where the cemetery was located, I started getting the very strange feeling that I was not alone. I looked around but saw only the heat of the day and the dusty landscape. But I could swear that I heard voices of people; some were going about their daily business while others were mourning their dead. They all seemed to be saying to me: do not forget the past lest it happen again.
Text © Päivi Hoikkala
Phtos © Ulla Maria Hoikkala