On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Manzanar. A word that reminds us that the USA does have a dark history of racial profiling, and, dare we speak the words, concentration camps. But also a place of sublime beauty, as you know if you have ever visited it. These spectacular photos from Bill help us focus on the beauty, and also remind us that we can do better as we can learn from the mistakes of previous generations.
?BillinGlendaleCA
On February 19, 1942, in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which resulted in Japanese Americans being forced to leave their homes on the coast and relocate to internment camps in the interior of the country. One of these camps was set up in the former orchards of Owens Vally at Manzanar (apple orchard in Spanish) on land leased from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. 10,000 men, women and children were housed in tar paper covered communal buildings in the shadow of Mt. Williamson, California’s second highest peak. Summers are hot and winters are cold with a persistent wind.
This was my second visit to Manzanar, my first visit being 7 years prior. This time, not much was open, but visitors were allowed to take the “auto tour” and stop to see sites in the former camp. I particularly wanted to revisit the cemetery with it’s iconic monument with Mt. Williamson as a backdrop (my previous photo was captured with a low end point-and-shoot camera). Manzanar is a place to see where we as a country have taken the wrong path and to learn to not do that again.
This is the sign at the tradition entrance (there’s a new one that goes to the parking lot by the visitor’s center), notice the guard tower to the right of the sign in the distance.
This was the main entrance to the site, it’s now called the traditional entrance. It features the old guard shacks with Mt. Williamson in the background. The camp auditorium (not visitor’s center is on the far right).
An IR shot of the traditional entrance to Manzanar. Most of the site is out of frame to the right. Mt. Williamson looms in the background.
Several of the buildings have been reconstructed, this is one of the residential buildings.
The cemetery at Manzanar is at the back of the site with a simple monument lined up with Mt. Williamson. This IR shot contains a visual color overlay.
Wide shot of the cemetery at Mazanar, you can see the Moon just above and to the left of Mt. Williamson.
OK, I wasn’t there at sunset, but decided to try something creative by replacing the sky with one that I’d shot here in Glendale
JPL
Not that one would expect something else, but it’s so barren. What a sad time in our history, and with trump in office, it could be repeated.
p.a.
Looks stark, even in the full spectrum shots. I have read a main impetus behind the internment was the desire of west coast politicians to expropriate the Japanese-Americans’ properties. They knew these people were not a threat.
Baud
Pretty scenery for such a tragic place. I can’t believe how nice the traditional sign is for an internment camp.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: It wasn’t so barren maybe 30 years earlier, it was orchards and other agriculture. LADWP bought up the land and the water rights in the early 1900’s to bring the Owens River water to the growing City of LA.
@p.a.: There may have been a bit of that, but talking to my family who were young adults at the time, they were really scared. The Japanese did shell oil production facilities along the California coast. Now it’s pretty obvious that the fear was misdirected towards their fellow citizens of Japanese ancestry, but the fear was real.
@Baud: The sign is a replica as are the buildings, except for the gym. The monument in the cemetery was there at the time as well(I checked a 1944 aerial map).
Brachiator
@p.a.:
I don’t think that this was the main impetus, but it this certainly provided an opportunity for the venal to profit from people’s misery.
This was also the case in Canada where Canadians of Japanese ancestry were sent to camps. A number were fishermen and the internment eliminated competition with whites.
Most of these folks lived in British Columbia. The Canadian government sold all their possessions and property to deter them from returning.
The cruelty behind any fear is still sickening.
WaterGirl
I asked Albatrossity if he could write the Introduction to this one, because I was in too dark a place last week to feel that I could write something that would do it justice. It’s obvious from what he wrote that Albatrossity has visited Manzanar and found it to be a beautiful place; maybe he and Bill can tell us more about that this morning.
Amir Khalid
“Manzanar War Relocation Center”. Is that what they called internment back in the day?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Yup, Japanese-Americans were “relocated” there.
@WaterGirl: I’m headed to bed soon, it was over 100° here* this afternoon and it was draining.
It’s a dry heat, the Santa Ana winds were blowing. I was so dry and clear, I decided to try and shoot a pic of the Milky Way from my front door.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Ugh on the heat!
stinger
The pictures are beautiful, Bill.
Will we ever become better people?
Dmbeaster
@Amir Khalid: One weird thing about the whole program. The US citizens of Japanese ancestory were not required to be in the camps. They could relocate elsewhere in the US outside of the coastal zone. But very few had the means to do so, and they were removed quickly with no time to make a plan to relocate.
The Japanese on Hawaii were no required to relocate.
One of the most decorated fighting units in WWII was made up of Japanese Americans (fought primarily in Italy) who were mostly from Hawaii, but many volunteered right out of the camps.
arrieve
I always love your IR shots, but these are especially moving.. The cemetery shot is particularly — I can’t even think of an adjective. “Beautiful” and “wonderful” just don’t seem appropriate for this sad place.
Cheryl from Maryland
My first deep understanding of the internment camps happened when I was at the Smithsonian. A photographer from Santa Fe, Joan Myers, approached us in 1994 with a series of platinum prints she had taken of the various camps. It’s interesting to compare her photographs with Bill in Glendale’s as there have been “reconstructions” to the camps in the ensuing almost 30 years as more people visit them. Joan’s photographs showed many remains of those interned, including broken china, spoons, etc. If you are interested, her images can be found online. FYI, the tour of the exhibition almost didn’t happen as we were planning it right when the Smithsonian was dealing with the outrage at their planned exhibition on the Enola Gay.
tokyokie
@Dmbeaster: I always wondered why the Nisei in Hawaii, where they were a far greater percentage of the population than in California if not greater in number, and where the United States had key military installations, were not considered a security risk and the Californians were.
And the 442nd Infantry Regiment, which was almost entirely Nisei, was the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. military history. Daniel Inouye, the longtime Hawaii senator and Medal of Honor recipient, was its most notable member.
Albatrossity
Stunning images, Bill. I visited Manzanar in the mid 1970’s, and it looks like it hasn’t changed much. I have also visited a couple of other internment/relocation sites (Tule Lake CA and Granada CO); there are quite a few of them scattered across the west. The history of that time is getting forgotten these days, but it is worth learning and remembering.
Thanks for this!
Rand Careaga
Did anyone else look at the lettering on that sign and think “I saw what they did here?”
Mike in NC
In 1942 there were simply too many Americans of Japanese descent living in Hawaii to relocate them anywhere.
laura
Beautiful and haunting pictures BillinGlendale. If anyone is interested in knowing more about Manzanar I highly recommend Jeanne Wakasuki Houston’s memoir A Farewell to Manzanar. She was 7 when her family was interred. I read it in 1973 – the year it was published because my dad gave me a book called 9066 – a series of photos of the roundups the lives left behind and life under authoritarian rule.
@JPL: sadly it IS happening under trump- baby Maria is still in a cage in a detention camp and it’s still being done in our name.
J R in WV
A dark place indeed, in spite of the beauty. Great work, Billin. Thanks, all~!~
?BillinGlendaleCA
@stinger: Thanks. I hope so.
@Dmbeaster: Yup, the “relocation” was pretty swift. In Hawaii, they had two problems, the size of the Japanese-American population and being essential to the local economy and just the logistics of moving folk off an island(ships were in a bit of short supply at the time).
@arrieve: Oh, you’re the other person who likes my IR stuff. Thanks, I was really happy the way these turned out(the cemetery IR shot was my most popular photo that I’ve posted on IG).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Cheryl from Maryland: I didn’t know much about the camps until I got to college and had a number of friends whose parents had been raised in the camps. While not much was open on this trip, I did visit the camp 7 years ago with Madame(who had no idea that these camps existed) and we toured the visitors center.
@tokyokie: The Nisei in Hawaii were vital to the economy there and just the logistics were not workable. A lot of the reason it happened on the west coast is people here were really scared.
@Albatrossity: Thanks, I really wish more people would visit; this stain on our nation character seems to have been forgotten by many of our fellow citizens. I’ve seen a number of comments about dealing with the homeless here in LA with the solution being to ship them to the desert. It’s really sad.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Rand Careaga: I’m looking at the sign and still not seeing it, blonde moment for me I guess.
@Mike in NC: Yup, and they were pretty integral to the islands economy as well.
@laura: Thanks. As I noted above, Trump has talked about solving “the homeless problem” here in LA, it will involve camps(concentrated away from the city).
@J R in WV: Thanks, it’s a place that many drive by on their way to the eastern Sierra or Reno and never stop. They should.
agorabum
A lot of the Japanese there were fishermen, and some would sneak out to go fishing in the small lakes of the Eastern Sierra. There is even a documentary about it called the Manzanar Fishing Club.
Also, in the later years of the war, they stopped manning the guard towers and people could leave the camp (not sure if they had to sign out or what); a group went up to the high lakes to fish and a surprise summer snowstorm ended up leading to the death of one of the members (who had lagged behind to paint). He was found a month later and buried up there, only to have some hikers find his body last year and report potential foul play. Of course, the crime was “solved” by the realization that this was the same hiker who died 75 years ago.
Arclite
The shocking thing about that sign is the font: it’s very Germanic. Compare to the font on the cover of a certain book. I’m really interested in how that font got chosen. I hope it was just a coincidence.
Chris
If you are interested in what the relocation experience was like, then I encourage you to look into the poetry of Mitsuye Yamada, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mitsuye-yamada. She’s a wonderfully talented woman who still graces our community at age 94. She was relocated as a high school senior to a camp in Idaho.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@agorabum: Quite a few of the Japanese-Americans at the camps were gardeners or ran nurseries(Japanese gardeners were still a thing here in CA in the 60’s when I was growing up), the publisher of one of the local papers here in LA bought out the supply of camellias from the local Japanese owned nurseries for his estate and kept the money to give back to the owners. That estate is now Desconso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge.
@Arclite: OK, becoming less blonde. I’m not sure if it’s intentional or not.
@Chris: Also if you’re near one of the camps, they’re worth a visit. The one at Manzanar was really good(from my previous visit.
@Albatrossity: I should also note that there were a good number of changes from my visit there 7 years ago, mostly with the parking lot entrance and the roads around the camp(now paved).
UncleEbeneezer
Nice pictures! For anyone who goes, definitely go inside (once it’s open again), but be ready because it is a HEAVY experience.
Arclite
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Heh, I actually posted that before I read your comment. But yeah, not a good look. However, who knows if there is even a connection. The world was a much more isolated place in the 1940s compared to today. I’d like to think it’s just an odd coincidence.
Dan B
We have friends who were in the camps and had in-laws who were as well. The in-laws died when their van blew a tire on the freeway in NE Oregon on the way back from visiting the camp they were interred in in Idaho.
Many Japanese americans in tge Seattle area were farmers on Bainbridge Island, mostly strawberries. Our in-laws had a fishing business. They brought fresh King Crab, Black Cod, and King Salmon to family gatherings. Food brings people together and great food does so at warp speed.
There seem to be onions here, or dust got in my eyes.
Jay Noble
My own little home town of Sidney played a very sad next step in this. Our ordinace depot housed Italian POWs and Japanese internees. The Japanese were in anext phase of the program to “re-integrate” them into the US. These were American Citizens!
The worst part for me was just finding about this a few years ago. All kinds of stuff, kids history projects and museum displays on the POWs, nothing on the internees. What I found from a Univ. of Cal. was sickening. The stuff was presented as if these were refugees straight off the boat.
The info is somewhere here on my computer but it will have to wait for me to calm down again to put it up
?BillinGlendaleCA
@UncleEbeneezer: Absolutely, the park service has done a really good job with exhibits and a film presentation about the camp with recollections from the residents.
@Arclite: Since it’s a reproduction(everything except the entrance guard stations, the gym and the cemetery are reproductions), I’m not sure how true it is to the original.
@Dan B: I had a close friend in college whose parents were in the camps, though I’m not sure which one.
@Jay Noble: There were several places around here that were used as temporary holding areas before folk were transported to the camps, the barns at Santa Anita was one of the bigest.