Manzanar

We went to Manzanar on Friday. For those of you that don’t know, it is a National Historic Site. Why? During World War II, Japanese Americans were interned at this and ten other locations for the simple reason that they were ethnically Japanese. As a teacher and student of history, this is a place that I have wanted to walk for some time. I wasn’t fully prepared for what I would feel and what it would bring to mind. 

We arrived after noon to a blast furnace of near 100 degree heat. No wind. Just heat. The air-conditioned visitor’s center gave us relief for about an hour while we toured the extremely well done exhibits. In the 1940s, none of the barracks were air-conditioned, nor any of the mess halls or the latrines. The people that were forced by their government to live in these American concentration camps had few if any modern conveniences, or privacy, or dignity. 

After the exhibit hall, we jumped into the Minnie and did the driving tour. The first stop was two reconstructed barracks and a mess hall. Very haunting, to walk the same pathways as those who were interned at Manzanar, and while the exhibits were again very well done, it was really the time walking along in the sweltering heat that had the biggest impact on me. I just could not imagine spending my days confined by my government, surrounded by barbed wire, baking in that heat. Relief came in the summer in the form of wind, but that relief brought dust that coated every square inch of everything. 

I wonder today about how they returned home. How did one think of the US as home after such an experience? They did, though, return home, to San Francisco and Oakland and Seattle and Portland and so many other towns and cities across the west and this country. And in their return, they continued to prove that they were indeed as worthy as the rest of us, to be called an American, just by showing up and living in their skin each day. 

This was an appalling time in our nation’s history. I think to myself how could we ever have gotten to such a place, and then I realize we may be there again. The current political climate espouses such hateful rhetoric, it scares me tremendously. Is there any chance that those who practice Islam could be confined as the Japanese were? Would the American people allow this horrible segment of our history to repeat itself? There’s the part of me that laughs at such a notion, no way could this happen in this day and age, and then there is the part of me that knows it’s not that far-fetched, given the hate and ignorance that permeates too many minds and places and spaces. 

I encourage you to walk the grounds of Manzanar or Tule Lake or Heart Mountain, and if you can’t physically make that happen, then read and watch and listen. Understand this part of our history, understand where we are today, and never assume it can’t happen again. 

Signing off from Cathedral Gorge State Park in Nevada after a 400 or so mile drive today. It’s Pink Saturday and while I miss seeing the Pink Triangle on Twin Peaks (we had a great view from States Street!), I am grateful to be sitting in the quiet, next to Alanna, surrounded by pink canyon walls, with lesbians from Oregon camped across from us. It’s pride for us, for today.