BGuthrie Photos: CA -- Independence -- Manzanar NHS

CA -- Independence -- Manzanar NHS:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. MAN_090729_051.JPG: Play Ball! Here at Manzanar's main baseball field, thousands of fans gathered for epic match-ups between the Scorpions, Padres, Has-Beens, and other teams in the camp's 12 leagues. Baseball was a powerful symbol of an American way of life that boosted morale and brought some sense of normalcy to a confined community. By summer 1942, nearly 100 men's and 14 women's softball teams were playing a full schedule of games. Teams like the San Fernando Aces and San Pedro Gophers came intact from their pre-war communities while other teams formed in camp. The ManzaKnights grew out of a popular young men's social club while older men formed their own league. Women's teams included the Dusty Chicks and Modernaires. Internees joined sports of virtually every kind -- basketball, volleyball, tennis, judo, sumo, weight-lifting and golf -- to combat boredom and stay active. But baseball was king! "Without baseball," said one internee, "life at Manzanar would have been miserable." Stopping Fire: Camp planners left wide spaces like this one empty to prevent the rapid spread of fire. Intersecting at every four blocks, firebreaks offered welcome "breathing space" in the crowded camp. They were used for sports fields, parks, Victory Gardens, an outdoor theater, as well as for special events such as the annual Obon festival. "Putting on a baseball uniform was like wearing the American flag." -- Takeo Suo
2. MAN_090729_052.JPG: Play Ball! Here at Manzanar's main baseball field, thousands of fans gathered for epic match-ups between the Scorpions, Padres, Has-Beens, and other teams in the camp's 12 leagues. Baseball was a powerful symbol of an American way of life that boosted morale and brought some sense of normalcy to a confined community. By summer 1942, nearly 100 men's and 14 women's softball teams were playing a full schedule of games. Teams like the San Fernando Aces and San Pedro Gophers came intact from their pre-war communities while other teams formed in camp. The ManzaKnights grew out of a popular young men's social club while older men formed their own league. Women's teams included the Dusty Chicks and Modernaires. Internees joined sports of virtually every kind -- basketball, volleyball, tennis, judo, sumo, weight-lifting and golf -- to combat boredom and stay active. But baseball was king! "Without baseball," said one internee, "life at Manzanar would have been miserable." Stopping Fire: Camp planners left wide spaces like this one empty to prevent the rapid spread of fire. Intersecting at every four blocks, firebreaks offered welcome "breathing space" in the crowded camp. They were used for sports fields, parks, Victory Gardens, an outdoor theater, as well as for special events such as the annual Obon festival. "Putting on a baseball uniform was like wearing the American flag." -- Takeo Suo
3. MAN_090729_093.JPG: Waiting in Beauty: You are standing before San-shi-en, or 3-4 Garden. Water once flowed over these silent stones, soothing troubled spirits and easing the monotony of long meantime lines. Designed and built by internees, mess hall gardens served as a source of block identity and pride. This and other gardens in Blocks 9, 12, and 22, share symbolic roots in ancient Japanese design. In each, you will find three distinct levels aligned north and south: a hill of earth represents the mountains from which water flows south to a pond, symbolizing an ocean or lake. Here, internees planted trees from the camp nursery and hauled stones from the rugged Inyou Mountains to the east. As you walk around the garden, look for the crane and turtle rocks. Found together, they are said to ensure ageless vitality. Unearthing the Gardens: This pond was buried by sand and sediment for fifty years, until National Park Service anthropologists unearthed it in 1999. They later excavated a mess hall root cellar to your left, reconstructed the historic fence, secured stones, and repaired and extended the mess hall sidewalk. "Six months ago Manzanar was a barren, uninhabited desert. Today, green lawns, picturesque gardens with miniature mountains, stone lanterns, bridges over ponds where carp play, and other original, decorative ideas attest to the Japanese people's traditional love of nature and ingenuity in reproducing beauty in miniature." -- "Best Garden Contest" ,Manzanar Free Press, Fall 1942
4. MAN_090729_105.JPG: Waiting in Beauty: You are standing before San-shi-en, or 3-4 Garden. Water once flowed over these silent stones, soothing troubled spirits and easing the monotony of long meantime lines. Designed and built by internees, mess hall gardens served as a source of block identity and pride. This and other gardens in Blocks 9, 12, and 22, share symbolic roots in ancient Japanese design. In each, you will find three distinct levels aligned north and south: a hill of earth represents the mountains from which water flows south to a pond, symbolizing an ocean or lake. Here, internees planted trees from the camp nursery and hauled stones from the rugged Inyou Mountains to the east. As you walk around the garden, look for the crane and turtle rocks. Found together, they are said to ensure ageless vitality. Unearthing the Gardens: This pond was buried by sand and sediment for fifty years, until National Park Service anthropologists unearthed it in 1999. They later excavated a mess hall root cellar to your left, reconstructed the historic fence, secured stones, and repaired and extended the mess hall sidewalk. "Six months ago Manzanar was a barren, uninhabited desert. Today, green lawns, picturesque gardens with miniature mountains, stone lanterns, bridges over ponds where carp play, and other original, decorative ideas attest to the Japanese people's traditional love of nature and ingenuity in reproducing beauty in miniature." -- "Best Garden Contest" ,Manzanar Free Press, Fall 1942
5. MAN_090729_140.JPG: Sacred Space: Life at Manzanar was uncertain, but the prospect of dying behind barbed wire, far from home, may have been unthinkable. On May 16, 1942, Matsunosuke Murakami, 62, became the first of 150 men, women, and children to die in camp. He and 14 others, most infants and older men without families, were laid to rest in this cemetery outside the barbed wire fence in an old peach orchard from Manzanar's farming era. Here, in the shadow of majestic Mt. Williamson, their somber funerals and memorials were attended by hundreds of mourners. While some deceased were sent to hometown cemeteries, most were cremated and their ashes held in camp until their families left Manzanar. Gilchi Matsumura, an internee who died in 1945 while exploring the Sierra, is buried high in the mountains above you. Today, only six graves here, including Matsunosuke Murakami's, contain remains; families requested the removal of others after the war. I Rei To: The Japanese Kanji characters read "Soul Consoling Tower." Master stonemason Ryozo Kado, c Catholic, and Buddhist minister Shinjo Nagatomi designed this iconic monument as a permanent tribute to Manzanar's dead. Kado built the obelisk with the assistance of Block 9 residents and a young Buddhists' group, funded by 15-cent donations from each family in camp. Rev. Nagatomi carefully inscribed the monument's characters -- including "Erected by the Manzanar Japanese, August 1943" on the west side. While Rev. Nagatomi and Ryozo Kado live on in the memories of family and community, Kado also left his legacy in cement and stone. He built the sentry posts at the camp entrance and other camp features in his distinctive faux wood style. Compare the posts surrounding this monument to those near the sentry posts and look for other examples of Kado's craftsmanship around Manzanar.
6. MAN_090729_142.JPG: Legacy: Over the years, this monument has become an icon, inspiring a grass-roots movement to preserve Manzanar and remember the sacrifices of 120,313 Japanese Americans confined by their own government. Buddhist minister Sentoku Mayeda and Christian minister Shoichi Wakahiro first returned here on Memorial Day 1946. For the next 30 years, they made "pilgrimages" to honor Manzanar's dead. Amid the 1960s civil rights struggles, younger Japanese Americans spoke out, shattering their elders' silence and shame about the camps. On a cold December day in 1969, 150 people journeyed here on the first organized pilgrimage. An annual event ever since, the Manzanar Pilgrimage attracts hundreds of people of all ages from diverse backgrounds. On the last Saturday of April, they gather here for a day of remembrance with speeches, a memorial service, and a traditional ondo dance. Visiting the cemetery anytime can be a personal pilgrimage -- of reflection, worship, remembrance, or protest. Some people leave offerings -- coins, personal mementos, paper cranes, water and sake, and religious items -- as outward expressions of the ongoing, unspoken conversations about America's past and its future. "America is strong as it makes amends for the wrongs it has committed ... We will always remember Manzanar because of that." -- Sue Kunitomi Embrey Sue Kunitomi Embrey, 1923-2006: Sue Kunotomi arrived at Manzanar in May 1942, at age 19. In camp, she served as a teacher's aid, wove camouflage nets to support the war effort, and worked as a reporter and then managing editor of the Manzanar Free Press. Years later Sue Kunitomi Embrey was among the first of her generation to speak out about the camps. As the driving force behind the Manzanar Committee, she organized the Manzanar Pilgrimage for 37 years and worked tirelessly to ensure that this site and its stories would be preserved to protect the human and civil rights of all. Today, Sue's legacy endures in the ongoing work or informing and inspiring future generations.
7. MAN_090729_149.JPG: Legacy: Over the years, this monument has become an icon, inspiring a grass-roots movement to preserve Manzanar and remember the sacrifices of 120,313 Japanese Americans confined by their own government. Buddhist minister Sentoku Mayeda and Christian minister Shoichi Wakahiro first returned here on Memorial Day 1946. For the next 30 years, they made "pilgrimages" to honor Manzanar's dead. Amid the 1960s civil rights struggles, younger Japanese Americans spoke out, shattering their elders' silence and shame about the camps. On a cold December day in 1969, 150 people journeyed here on the first organized pilgrimage. An annual event ever since, the Manzanar Pilgrimage attracts hundreds of people of all ages from diverse backgrounds. On the last Saturday of April, they gather here for a day of remembrance with speeches, a memorial service, and a traditional ondo dance. Visiting the cemetery anytime can be a personal pilgrimage -- of reflection, worship, remembrance, or protest. Some people leave offerings -- coins, personal mementos, paper cranes, water and sake, and religious items -- as outward expressions of the ongoing, unspoken conversations about America's past and its future. Sacred Space: Life at Manzanar was uncertain, but the prospect of dying behind barbed wire, far from home, may have been unthinkable. On May 16, 1942, Matsunosuke Murakami, 62, became the first of 150 men, women, and children to die in camp. He and 14 others, most infants and older men without families, were laid to rest in this cemetery outside the barbed wire fence in an old peach orchard from Manzanar's farming era. Here, in the shadow of majestic Mt. Williamson, their somber funerals and memorials were attended by hundreds of mourners. While some deceased were sent to hometown cemeteries, most were cremated and their ashes held in camp until their families left Manzanar. Gilchi Matsumura, an internee who died in 1945 while exploring the Sierra, is buried high in the mountains above you. Today, only six graves here, including Matsunosuke Murakami's, contain remains; families requested the removal of others after the war. I Rei To: The Japanese Kanji characters read "Soul Consoling Tower." Master stonemason Ryozo Kado, c Catholic, and Buddhist minister Shinjo Nagatomi designed this iconic monument as a permanent tribute to Manzanar's dead. Kado built the obelisk with the assistance of Block 9 residents and a young Buddhists' group, funded by 15-cent donations from each family in camp. Rev. Nagatomi carefully inscribed the monument's characters -- including "Erected by the Manzanar Japanese, August 1943" on the west side. While Rev. Nagatomi and Ryozo Kado live on in the memories of family and community, Kado also left his legacy in cement and stone. He built the sentry posts at the camp entrance and other camp features in his distinctive faux wood style. Compare the posts surrounding this monument to those near the sentry posts and look for other examples of Kado's craftsmanship around Manzanar.
8. MAN_090729_263.JPG: Weaving for the War: America went to work for the war effort in 1942, and Manzanar was no exception. More than 500 young Japanese Americans wove camouflage nets here for the U.S. Army. Since citizenship was a job requirement, most saw weaving nets as a chance to prove their loyalty -- and earn some money. A friend camaraderie grew among the crews -- who often worked to big band music blaring from loudspeakers -- as they turned out an average of 6,000 nets a month. The three 18" tall sheds built on these long slabs soon became a flash point for discontent over wages and friction between citizens and non-citizens that spread throughout camp. The work proved hazardous, too, with internees enduring long hours of breathing fine lint and contact with harsh dyes, The net factory closed after the Manzanar Riot in December 1942 and the sheds were converted to other uses. To your left, a mattress factory produced 4,020 mattresses for the camp before fire destroyed it in 1943. Manzanar became nearly self-sufficient by 1944 due to its agriculture and industries, ranging from shoe and typewriter repair to soy sauce and tofu processing. A clothing factory produced uniforms and work clothes for the camp's nurses, mess hall workers, and policemen, while a furniture factory built desks, chairs, baby cribs, and toys. "Our pay was $16 a month and we certainly earned it as we took pride in our work. Interestingly, after I finished college many years later, I became a weaver. It might have been because I enjoyed weaving the camouflage nets." -- Momo Nagano
9. MAN_090729_268.JPG: Weaving for the War: America went to work for the war effort in 1942, and Manzanar was no exception. More than 500 young Japanese Americans wove camouflage nets here for the U.S. Army. Since citizenship was a job requirement, most saw weaving nets as a chance to prove their loyalty -- and earn some money. A friend camaraderie grew among the crews -- who often worked to big band music blaring from loudspeakers -- as they turned out an average of 6,000 nets a month. The three 18" tall sheds built on these long slabs soon became a flash point for discontent over wages and friction between citizens and non-citizens that spread throughout camp. The work proved hazardous, too, with internees enduring long hours of breathing fine lint and contact with harsh dyes, The net factory closed after the Manzanar Riot in December 1942 and the sheds were converted to other uses. To your left, a mattress factory produced 4,020 mattresses for the camp before fire destroyed it in 1943. Manzanar became nearly self-sufficient by 1944 due to its agriculture and industries, ranging from shoe and typewriter repair to soy sauce and tofu processing. A clothing factory produced uniforms and work clothes for the camp's nurses, mess hall workers, and policemen, while a furniture factory built desks, chairs, baby cribs, and toys. "Our pay was $16 a month and we certainly earned it as we took pride in our work. Interestingly, after I finished college many years later, I became a weaver. It might have been because I enjoyed weaving the camouflage nets." -- Momo Nagano
10. MAN_090729_299.JPG: First Street, Manzanar, USA: Standing here in 1942, you would have been at the nerve center of camp life: First Street. Supply trucks and automobiles rumbled by on this thoroughfare, where the lines between camp life and the world outside seemed to intersect. The street always bustled with activity, as internees and administrators together transacted the business of camp. The white buildings on the street's south side included the War Relocation Authority (WRA) offices and staff housing as well as the Town Hall, where elected block leaders met weekly. At the main post office, 1,500 letters arrived each day to be delivered to barracks addresses. On the north side of the street, black tar-papered barracks housed the police station, Manzanar Free Press newspaper office, and other cap functions and services. Wooden signs identifying each swayed outside in the Owens Valley wind. A typical morning on First Street saw secretary Mary Kageyama walking to her job at the Public Works office and Jack Takayanagi signing up for a softball league at the Community Activities office. Marian Fujimoto checked the job board for employment opportunities out of camp, while WRA staff children Art Williams and Fred Causey waited near the sentry post to catch the school bus to Independence. Manzanar Free Press reporter Sue Kunitomi enjoyed walking around camp to find out what was going on. "They had set up a co-operative," she recalled. "It included beauty and barber shops, a shoe repair shop, dry goods store, and what we called the canteens -- like a little grocery store." The stores were located all over camp but were administered by the Manzanar Cooperative Enterprise here on First Street. Catalog companies like Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward also did brisk mail-order business in camp.
11. MAN_090729_335.JPG: In Honor of Americans of Japanese Ancestry who served in the 100th / 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service during World War II
12. MAN_090729_343.JPG: Manzanar In the early part of World War II, 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry were interned in relocation centers by Executive Order No. 9066, issued on February 19, 1942. Manzanar, the first of ten such concentration camps was bounded by barbed wire and guard towers confining 10,000 persons, the majority being American citizens. May the injustices and humiliation suffered here as a result of hysteria, racism and economic exploitation never emerge again. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 850 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Manzanar Committee and the Japanese American Citizens League, April 14, 1973.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Manzanar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, it was one of the smaller internment camps. The largest was the Tule Lake internment camp, located in northern California with a population of over 18,000 inmates. The smallest was Amanche, located southeastern Colorado, with over 7,000 inmates. It is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California's Owens Valley, between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, approximately 230 miles (370 km) north of Los Angeles. Manzanar means "apple orchard" in Spanish. The Manzanar National Historic Site, which preserves and interprets the legacy of Japanese American incarceration in the United States, was identified by the United States National Park Service as the best-preserved of the ten former camp sites.

The first Japanese Americans arrived at Manzanar in March of 1942, just one month after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, to build the camp their families would be staying in. Manzanar was in operation as an internment camp from 1942 until 1945. Since the last of those incarcerated left in 1945, former detainees and others have worked to protect Manzanar and to establish it as a National Historic Site to ensure that the history of the site, along with the stories of those who were incarcerated there, is recorded for current and future generations. The primary focus is the Japanese American incarceration era, as specified in the legislation that created the Manzanar National Historic Site. The site also interprets the former town of Manzanar, the ranch days, the settlement by the Owens Valley Paiute, and the role that water played in shaping the history of the Owens Valley.
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