Manzanar National Historic Site
The U.S. government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their West Coast homes in 1942. Manzanar became one of ten camps where these Americans found themselves imprisoned without trial or charges.
The camp stood in California’s Owens Valley between the Sierra Nevada mountains and the high desert. Officials picked this remote spot, 230 miles from Los Angeles, specifically because nobody could easily escape.
The first Japanese Americans walked through the gates in March 1942, just weeks after President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. By summer, over 10,000 people lived behind Manzanar’s barbed wire fences.
When Pearl Harbor Changed Everything
The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 triggered far more than America’s entry into World War II.
It sparked a wave of suspicion against anyone with Japanese ancestry. FBI agents arrested Japanese American community leaders within hours. Newspapers printed wild stories about imaginary sabotage. Politicians called for removing all Japanese Americans from the West Coast.
Most of those eventually locked up were American citizens by birth. Many had never even visited Japan. Their Japanese faces became their only “crime” in the eyes of a frightened nation.
The Day Families Left Everything Behind
Families discovered their fate through evacuation notices tacked to telephone poles and storefronts. Most had less than a week to handle everything they owned. Many sold homes, cars, and businesses for almost nothing.
Others gave prized possessions to neighbors for safekeeping. One family sold their grocery store worth $15,000 for just $800. They arrived at Manzanar carrying only what they could hold – usually a single suitcase per person.
Family photos, furniture, and tools all stayed behind. The financial wounds cut deep, with most families losing almost everything.
Life Behind Barbed Wire And Watchtowers
Desert dust coated everything as families walked into their assigned barracks. Each 20-by-25-foot room housed eight people, separated only by hanging blankets. No running water flowed in the barracks.
Toilets sat in large, open rooms without dividers. Armed guards watched from eight towers surrounding the 500-acre compound. Summer brought 100-degree heat. Winter delivered snow and freezing winds that blew through cracks in the thin walls.
Families lined up three times daily at mess halls for simple army-style meals on metal trays.
Creating A Community In Confinement
Japanese Americans refused to surrender to despair. They planted victory gardens in the desert soil. They formed baseball teams that played on makeshift fields. They built schools from scrap wood.
The camp newspaper, Manzanar Free Press, began publishing in April 1942. Internees worked in camp for low wages – $8 monthly for unskilled work, up to $19 for professionals.
Many created beautiful Japanese gardens with pools and bridges, transforming patches of barren ground into places of beauty. These gardens became quiet refuges where people found moments of peace amid barbed wire.
The Children’s Village That Housed 101 Orphans
A tragic footnote in Manzanar’s history was America’s only wartime orphanage for children of Japanese descent. Children’s Village housed 101 orphans, from infants to teenagers.
Unlike regular barracks, the orphanage had running water and bathrooms. The children came from orphanages across the West Coast. Some were mixed-race with as little as one-eighth Japanese ancestry.
The orphans faced double isolation – separated from the outside world by the camp’s barbed wire, and often shunned by other children. Staff members became substitute parents, creating a family amid the harshest circumstances.
The December Riot That Turned Deadly
Tension boiled over on December 6, 1942, when military police fired into a crowd of unarmed internees. The clash killed two young men and wounded nine others.
The trouble began when Harry Ueno, who had complained about food theft, was arrested for allegedly beating another internee. Hundreds gathered at the police station demanding Ueno’s release.
As the crowd grew, nervous MPs fired tear gas, then bullets. Seventeen-year-old James Ito died instantly. Twenty-one-year-old Jim Kanegawa died days later. The camp remained under martial law for months afterward.
Through The Lens Of Famous Photographers
Three photographers captured Manzanar’s story through powerful images that still move viewers today. Dorothea Lange documented the early days of evacuation and camp life. Her unflinching photos so honestly showed the injustice that military censors impounded many of them.
Ansel Adams, famous for his landscape work, photographed daily life in 1943. His portraits showed the dignity of people facing unjust imprisonment. Toyo Miyatake, himself an internee, secretly built a camera from smuggled parts. His insider’s perspective created the most intimate record of camp life.
When The Gates Finally Opened
Manzanar’s gates opened in November 1945, three months after World War II ended. The last internees left a place that had been their unwanted home for over three years. Many had nowhere to return to, having lost homes and businesses.
Each person received just $25 and a bus ticket upon release. Some faced continued discrimination in the communities they once called home. Workers quickly dismantled the camp, erasing most physical evidence of what had happened there.
For decades afterward, many former internees rarely spoke about their experiences, carrying silent wounds.
The Long Road To Recognition
History nearly forgot Manzanar until former internees began organizing in the late 1960s. Their grassroots efforts eventually brought official recognition of this dark chapter. California designated Manzanar as a State Historic Landmark in 1972.
It gained listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1985. Congress finally established Manzanar as a National Historic Site in 1992, fifty years after the first Japanese Americans arrived there.
The interpretive center opened in 2004, housed in the restored high school auditorium – one of the few original buildings still standing.
The Annual Pilgrimage That Keeps Memory Alive
Every April since 1969, hundreds of visitors gather at Manzanar’s cemetery for a day of remembrance. Former internees, their descendants, and people of all backgrounds come together to honor those incarcerated here.
The Manzanar Committee organizes this pilgrimage featuring speakers, cultural performances, and an interfaith service. Many participants place paper cranes and personal offerings at the cemetery monument.
“Manzanar At Dusk” began in 1997, adding small group discussions where visitors hear directly from former internees. These conversations ensure that personal stories, not just historical facts, pass to new generations.
Visiting Manzanar National Historic Site
You’ll find Manzanar on U.S. Highway 395, beneath the shadow of Mt. Whitney. The site is open daily from sunrise to sunset, with no entrance fee. Begin at the visitor center in the restored auditorium, where exhibits and a 22-minute film introduce the site’s history.
Two original structures remain – the auditorium and the sentry posts at the entrance. A one-mile self-guided driving tour takes you past reconstructed barracks, a mess hall, and a guard tower.
The cemetery with its white obelisk monument stands as a powerful reminder of lives disrupted and forever changed by wartime hysteria and racial prejudice.
Read More from This Brand:
The post This dusty California valley held America’s largest concentration camp during WWII appeared first on When In Your State.