"Large-scale evacuation of Japanese aliens and their American-born children from strategic Pacific Coast military and industrial areas began today as a caravan of 350 autos and trucks left Pasadena for the Army’s new reception center east of the Sierra Nevadas...By nightfall between 1000 and 1500 are expected to reach Manzanar.” - LOS ANGELES, March 23, 1942. (SF virtual Museum)
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“They had the meanest dust storms there and not a blade of grass. And the springs are so cruel; when those people arrived there they couldn’t keep the tarpaper on the shacks. Oh, my. There were some pretty terrible chapters of that history.”
— Dorothea Lange at Manzanar, Oral History, 192 The Manzanar War Relocation Center is in a desolate location--perfect for these government designated "Japanese Aliens" to stay for the duration of the war. Manzanar is near Death Valley-an extreme climate, 110ºF in the summer, yet below freezing in winter. |
Clip from government propaganda film released in 1943. (National Archives)
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Internees realized Manzanar would be home for a while, so they made livings for themselves. They created businesses, started the "Manzanar Free Press," and planted crops. |
“...a totally equipped American small town, complete with schools, churches, Boy Scouts, beauty parlors, neighborhood gossip, fire and police departments, glee clubs, softball leagues, Abbott and Costello movies, tennis courts, and traveling shows.” - Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Farewell to Manzanar.
"Manzanar was a volcano about to erupt... Many people were filled with many hates about many things - race hates, war hates, political hates, class hates... and just the common kind of hates we all know too well." - Ralph Meritt, Project Director, December 25, 1942
In December, 1942, Manzanar rioted. Internees disobeyed and soldiers fired into the crowd of Japanese Americans. Two inmates were killed and ten injured. In response, martial law was imposed. The camp went under even stricter conditions. (Densho encyclopedia) |