MANZANAR

Manzanar's entrance

Manzanar War Relocation Center. Sounds like home, right? Certainly worth leaving the comforts of your own domicile for, for sure...right? Not so much.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, war was officailly declared on the Empire Of The Rising Sun. In 1942, the U.S. Government collected as many as one hundred ten thousand Japanese Americans. Manzanar was one of ten camps where these people were interred. They were allowed one suitcase, to last indefinately. Stripped of their jobs, their homes, property, businesses, etc, they were forced to live as group prisoners.
Many of you who take the drive up to Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort for either winter fun, or the NORBA Nationals race have all passed this encampment. It is located in the Owens Valley, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains off Highway 395. Temperatures here range from over 100 degrees in summer, to well below freezing in winter. Handle that with one suitcase, and that has to inclue any family heirlooms, photos, documents, etc!
Eight tall guard towers ringed the camp, each manned by M.P.'s with submachine guns. Twelve thousand were housed here until the war's end. Japanese were brought here against their will, but this area hs another little known secret. The Paiute Indians were actually removed from the area in the early 1860's. Once white miners and settlers began moving n and claiming land for crops and towns, the military came in and resettled them all to Fort Tejon in 1863. Fort Tejon is found atop the "grapevine," on interstate 5. Fort Tejon is also known to be the first, last, and only place that camels were ever used by the United States Cavalry. That didn't work out, so the camels were sold, sent to the circus, or even set free in the California desert. Tales still are heard to this day about descendants of those cavalry camels roaming the American Southwest!


(The camp's first grave marker) In 1942, the army leased the six thousand acres that Manzanar sits on from L.A. County to create the camp. an amazing 28,790,221 meals were served during Manzanar's existance, at a cost of 3,384,749 dollars! "Your Tax Dollars At Work!" One hundred fifty people died here, and of that number, only six remained buried within the camp's confines. Today, it is a National Historic Site, and continue to be reborn and reinstated to it's former state.


(Girls making paper flowers) Next time you are driving up the old highway, take a moment to enter the park and try to understand what this must have been like. There is a great japanese-American museum right here in downtown Los Angeles! Located on the Olvera Street plaza, it is right behind the old Pico House Hotel. This is one of the best designed museums I have ever seen, with amazing letters, pictures, and accounts of the 1940'2 war time happenings.
Sleep tight kidos, and I personally hope the Swedish don't attack the U.S., becuase I don't wanna try and fit my road bike in a suitcase and live in a commune like a Sierra Club hippie.


Capn Chris


Construction of camp housing barracks










Arriving at Manzanar