I wrote last week about my admiration for the National Park Service and about several national parks we visited recently in California. While I loved and enjoyed all the parks, another NPS site actually had the greatest impact on me. In between parks, we stopped at the Manzanar Historical Site, the detention camp where over 10,000 U.S. residents of Japanese descent were forced to live, in other words, imprisoned, for nearly three years during World War II. On February 19, 1942, soon after Pearl Harbor had been attacked and war declared against Japan, Germany and Italy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the U.S. military to carry out the exclusion and detention of certain American citizens and resident aliens. On the West Coast, much of which had been declared a Theater of War, that order was applied unilaterally to people of Japanese ancestry because of their possible loyalty to the Emperor of Japan and their perceived threat to our nation, without any individual determination of that loyalty or threat. 

There were several layers of incarceration facilities, including temporary assembly centers, internment camps operated by the Department of Justice, and military detention sites, but at the core was a system of ten camps operated by the War Relocation Authority. These camps were specifically placed in remote areas, often deserts or isolated plains, in California, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and Arkansas. The camps’ peak capacities ranged from 7,000 to 18,000 prisoners. All told, an estimated 125,000 people of Japanese descent were incarcerated; approximately 80,000 were U.S. citizens, and many of the others were Issei, Japanese immigrants who were legally barred from becoming citizens. Interestingly, very few people were detained on the islands of Hawaii, despite Pearl Harbor, as military authorities decided that locking up nearly one-third of the state’s population would have too great an impact on the local economy.

Given very little time, in some cases as little as 48 hours, to prepare to vacate their homes and pack a few possessions, many people lost so much: homes were abandoned, businesses were closed overnight, items were sold for far less than their value, and pets were left behind. The people were herded onto trains and buses and sent to these hastily constructed detention camps. The conditions were horrific: many people were forced to share close quarters with complete strangers; the wind, heat and cold penetrated the cheap walls and made conditions barely tolerable; no privacy was afforded, as latrines had both communal showers and toilets. Meals, such as they were, were served in several large mess halls, with residents forced to wait in long lines outside in all weather conditions for their turn to eat. At the beginning, beds were sacks stuffed with straw, and only later replaced with army cots. There was initially no provision for education for children, and health services were extremely limited. Barbed wire surrounded the camps, and guard towers stood imposingly at each corner. 

At Manzanar, the Visitor Center is located in the former high school auditorium, one of only a few original buildings that remain, as the government quickly dismantled all the camps following the release of the prisoners. I read in shock the detailed exhibits, unable to fully comprehend how citizens could be treated this way. We then followed an automobile trail that runs throughout the one mile by one mile camp. In addition to the original guard house/entrance, the cemetery tower, and a couple of utility buildings, a few buildings have been reconstructed, based on photos and other documents from the camp drawings: a mess hall, a dormitory, a latrine, and one of the barracks for the staff overseeing the camp. (I’ve included photos of the buildings at the bottom, along with a couple of historic pictures–there are many more online.) Manzanar is in the desert and pummeled almost continually by wind and sand; I read how every morning the detainees had to sweep off the sand covering their bed, clothes, and furniture. The buildings provided little protection from the intense cold in winter and the scorching heat in summer. The entire site was dismal and so different from home for those incarcerated.

In a dramatic demonstration of resilience, however, the residents did what they could to build community and to make the camp home. They organized themselves in order to maximize their capacity to care for each other. They used bedsheets to separate women and families from others in the same barracks, and they built makeshift furniture from scrap lumber. They created educational space for the children and provided instruction and activities. They established places of worship and athletic sites, including baseball fields and a basketball court. They used whatever plant material they could find to beautify their prison, including partially landscaping the barracks and the mess halls; they even planted and cultivated a rose garden with a pond. In the face of humiliation and imprisonment, the prisoners worked to protect family life, preserve cultural traditions, and maintain individual dignity.

Eventually, some four decades later, the Commission on the Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians concluded, “Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity…The broad historical causes that shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 that paid a one-time stipend of $20,000 to each surviving detainee, admitting that “a grave injustice was done” and that the forcible removal was a “mistake.” Reagan and Congress, through the Act, officially apologized on behalf of the nation. More than 82,000 surviving former detainees received payments and apology letters.

The Civil Liberties Act is widely regarded as one of the clearest formal acknowledgments by the U.S. government that constitutional rights were violated, that racial prejudice played a central role, and that wartime fear overwhelmed democratic safeguards. It’s unclear why it took over 40 years for the government to reach this conclusion. It is also unclear what we as a nation actually learned from this experience.

The U.S. likes to raise the issue of human rights in situations around the world, posing as a champion for such rights. But the truth is, we are as guilty of human rights violations as any other country. We have denied rights to, oppressed, and diminished Native Americans, Black Africans and African-Americans, the Chinese, the Japanese, and so many “others.” “Democracy” is a hollow term when constitutional rights are denied to so many so often. It is hard to be a proud American when I stop to consider that so much of what we have and what we’ve accomplished is on the backs of, and at the expense of, others. But I am very proud of the National Park Service for bravely telling the truth about this horrendous episode during WWII to anyone who will visit.

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