Lake Tahoe & Eastern Sierra Attractions
Manzanar National Historic Site
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A wooden tower. A few stone guard stations. A pale green gymnasium. These few buildings are all that remains of the Manzanar War Relocation Center, where 10,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were interned during World War II because of their ancestry. When the center closed in 1945, many of the original buildings were sold and moved throughout the Owens Valley and used as apartments, homes, a bar and grill and even a Boy Scout meeting hall. But you can't conceal the past that easily.
In the interpretive center, I saw how those interned at Manzanar played, studied, farmed and worshiped. Late in the day, I drove around the 814-acre site to the cemetery, where six graves remained. Coins and bits of shiny porcelain were scattered on the graves, a tradition to honor the dead. On a white, spired memorial, silhouetted by the Sierra Nevada peaks, I studied the black Japanese characters etched on the front. "Soul consoling tower," they read. – Hugo Martín, L.A. Times Staff Writer
From the National Park Service: "Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten camps at which Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens were interned during World War II. Located at the foot of the majestic Sierra Nevada in eastern California's Owens Valley, Manzanar has been identified as the best preserved of these camps."
In 1942, the United States government ordered more than 110,000 men, women, and children to leave their homes and detained them in remote, military-style camps. Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten camps where Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens were interned during World War II."
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