Reprint from an earlier edition:


 

                   



Editor Karen's note: March marks the 67th anniversary of the beginning of 'Manzanar Relocation Center,' a Japanese-American Internment Camp that opened in March of 1942. I asked Patrick to write an article in remembrance of the milestone...  all photos are by Patrick as well.




                                                        MANZANAR

 

To most, Manzanar is the rest stop on the way home from Mammoth. Very few recognize and understand that Manzanar was the location of an internment "camp" during World War Two. Which is fine, chances are your history class touched on it for a record-breaking one day of the Axis Power study unit. Yet we can't blame under-funded public school systems for everything. Some 120,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted from all that was familiar,  becoming instant aliens overnight. Socially outcast as well as stripped of their constitutional rights, Japanese Americans were forced into holding pens and shipped off to government internment "camps".  

Instead of a fact-filled history lesson that will be read but have no importance to your memory, I will attempt to explain something that happened before my time but still lives within my makeup to this day.  

Pearl Harbor was the magnifying glass, and the concentrated beams of sun were the internment "camps." Manzanar was one "camp" out of many that distinguished the lives of so many Japanese Americans. It was wartime, a time of great suspicion and paranoia. Not too different from the current day. Countless families of Japanese decent  were forced to leave their homes and belongings; some were fortunate enough to have close friends to watch over their things. Most did not have such luck, selling their  material possessions quickly and  cheaply; they might as well have just been given away.  It was a sad time. Many non-Japanese Americans were also baffled at the notion of these"camps," and questioned the government’s motives. Yet the common mob mentality was that the "camps" were a great idea, and if anything, they were for  “the greater security of the Japanese American population.”  




                   



    To this day the argument of morality is still debated, although, I don't see how it can be argued. The general public shunned the Japanese culture, throwing racial slurs and tension around like it was the newest trend. 

    We claim that our lives are full of social problems, but really who are we to judge in this world of complete and utter hatred towards each other. We can look back on a time such as the 40's and 50's and say it was a different time, a different mind and motive from today. Yet the power of greater society has an impact more deadly than any weapon. Even in the daily motions and monuments of today we see life as nearly impossible, slightly less than tangible, a void of all decisions.  Yet what we fail to recognize is the truths that we hold within ourselves.  The lesson to be learned here is that in times of stress we will always blame, always hate, and yell. It is important to understand situations. We have the luxury of education and the privilege to find answers to our curiosity. There is no excuse to be angry at anything without being educated about it. If we just took the time to recognize and analyze, chances are we would be better off not only as individuals but as a complete society. Even though our freedom of voice and action is getting stripped from us more and more with each passing bill, we still have a voice that we are responsible for.  


 
-In this entry I put the word camp in quotes for a reason. For many Japanese -Americans internment camps were in reality "prison", "death", "concentration." See it how you will, for this writer wishes not to stir up bad blood, but instead to voice his opinion. My grandparents lived through the experience, all in different camps, all having different stories. I wish to convey my respect to all those out  there that had, and have, to endure wartime prejudice. The saying is that we learn from our past  mistakes, but be aware that this could happen again, at any time. A suit and tie doesn't strip you of your idealism; we know our limits, but forget them so often.