You know it's [very] humiliating experience to be rounded up by your own government
it was very painful because you not just were cast as
enemies
[you] lost everything materially
after the Japanese bombed Pearl [Harbor] in December of 1941 the [United] States government decided
Japanese-Americans were enemies of the [state]
within months over
100,000 us citizens and legal residents
Were ordered to leave their homes and report to one of [ten] remote internment centers?
[Manzanar] in the High California desert is one of those internment camps
Now this is Janice. That's jess it's you. Yeah
this was a [Manzanar] uh
And it looks like what do you think maybe I was 12 months old? [yes]?
And then this is Janice and Mom with the bear behind
Oh, yeah, if you look at our pictures every group of folks that are being evacuated. [we're] all dressed up
Can you imagine being order to come into Camp and like?
Line their best clothes wearing a best clothespin, and I'm coming early. Yes
on time
Yes, absolutely yes [tonight] when I look back at it, and if it were to happen today. Oh my I would raise that tail
Mom, [oh], we need more spam
Okay, I'll get it
my father never saw me my mother was pregnant with me, and he gave up his citizenship and
Left with his family to go back to Japan and my mother was not gonna give hers up
[Mommy]
I said I'll join the waves the [wac] [say] anything, but I sure am [not] leaving America
800 Volunteers
From the Japanese-American Community came up here including my uncle to build the barracks
So they dressed in their finest they showed up early and they built
And they built the barracks where they were to be housed
the barracks were cobbled together out of scrap lumber and
Tar paper there was no insulation. There was no privacy because they were just these 20 by 25 foot boxes
prefabricated barracks spring up
It's in no sense a concentration camp, but a city with its front yard in the snow peak Sierra, Nevadas here eventually
12,000 will live and work, I
Came to camp when I was almost 10 [years] old
We left early in the morning takes 9 hours to drive here
And we got it was really dusty and it was nothing, but this barracks there, so it was very stark
It was like a being abandoned yeah, I
Think when you come out here, [and] you feel the heat
And you see the dust and some years it's very windy the dust is going up your nose and your hair is just flying everywhere
You know you you really kind of can appreciate what the people went through
Where the [Japanese-Americans] live was basically one square mile?
And it was enclosed by a five strand barbed wire fence there were also eight guard towers
Security was really high very tight
one thing I'll never forget my grandmother telling me is that
when they first got here my great-grandmother was sit under the Apple orchard and cry and sob
But she couldn't give her children a better life that she couldn't provide them the opportunities [that] she wanted to
[google], okay, didn't [I] hook you [land] up?
Camp was boring. There's nothing to do we had to leave everything we had behind so you made whatever towards you could make
Out of material you had on hand
We had no other options. We were stuck behind a [barbed-wire] fence, so we made the best we can out of it
My older brother he heard one day about some of the guys they went fishing [in] the local Creek
So we [climbed] one of the Bob wire and leave camp we never had permission to go we just snuffed out a camp by ourselves
the war of course ends in August 1945, but the camp didn't close until november 21st of
1945 and that is because a lot of the people who [were] here had nowhere to go
Camp life was really bad because we were in captivity
we could do we wanted to do but I'll [rougher] life [a]
More devastating part of our my life history is when we came out of camp
Because in camp you were fed three times a day you had necessities of life
Before the war sets to meet his father had a thriving trucking business in Southern California, and the family lived comfortably
When they left Manzanar they had no home no money and faced rampant prejudice
The only job Mr.. Tomita could find was cleaning rabbit pen
And the place to live was a two-car garage all it has was one single light bulb
No water. No heat no electricity no gas
We had two bits and nine of us slept in that room there, so
[you] talk about harsh conditions [campus], okay commercial?
when the community emerges from camp with many people dispossessed of all of their
possessions and
Livelihood and houses they had to bury
the pain and Anger and frustration in order to
survive
For years even mentioning the internment experience was taboo amongst Americans
finally in 1969
250 students and activists returned to reclaim their history
now thousands make the Annual pilgrimage to
Remember past in justices and raise awareness of other civil rights struggles. We're here to continue the legacy
bringing friends of the community together to remember what happened at Manzanar in hopes of
something like this never [happening] again
my mother became
connected to these young students and this asian pride movement and came back to Manzanar in 69 and
[Manzanar] became bigger than life over the course of the next year to
TSukuda, [Tony] Embry was really the driving Force behind the creation of mann's in our historic site
She began organizing the pilgrimages and you know for almost 40 years was involved in preserving this site
She was very patriotic
Not someone whose patriotism was sort of mindless nationalism
But defending your country and making your country stand for what its constitution says it stands for
I want people 50 years from now to remember. What was there?
Although [it] was a negative place. We want to turn it around to be positive
So [that] people will always remember that America is a democracy
[Sukoon] [ito] me Embry
After that first visit sue embry threw herself into the cause the next year she brought her children
so here
I am 11 years old 12 years old and I get to come to Manzanar to the next pilgrimage and
We pull up and I look around and I said
Where's [Manzanar] and I'm thinking what the heck?
How this excitement all this animated discussion all this time, and there's nothing here
There's desert after [the] war the camp was quickly torn down
If not for a small monument built to honor man's and ours dead no one [would] know the Camp had ever existed
No one ever dreamed. We would have a park
No one ever dreamed
We would have the national government take responsibility for this and many people
Didn't want them to
There are large numbers of even former intern ees that felt that
Why are you bringing this up now? It's in the past
[it's] going to call unnecessary negative attention to us there's people out there that already hate us don't give them more ammunition
For two decades sue embry and others push the government to commemorate the site
finally in
1988 Congress issued a formal apology and paid twenty thousand dollars in reparations to every
surviving internee
Four years later the man's in our national historic site was established
At the end of every pilgrimage former internees tell their heart-wrenching stories the infant mortality
inside the [Camp's] was ten times higher than outside the [Camp's] so
I'm you know that's incredible. Why was to believe that children were deemed as
Dangerous to this country my family lived this I [imagined] my grandmother with five children
You know teens on down to my mom who was three which is the same age my daughter is now. This can't happen again ever
My dad had tractors he had trucks we had two cars. He must have been doing fairly well financially
And then of course the war started and everything came going in and that's how I'm sure
Many Japanese family were affected
It was just totally [tough] [as] [dirty]
Other civil rights activists Share their stories too. My wife they always harass her I tell her to go go back
This is still goes on as a muslim American
I've been discriminated so many times because of stereotypes that have been presented by the media people telling me. I saw it on MSNBC
I saw it on this you you know literally literally you had to speak out because
nobody spoke out for us and
It makes a difference
These kind of things are going on now, and I think we tell the story because we really feel our country I
Don't think they've learned much about
Prejudice A
Lot of people think of the national parks as the great natural areas and the great recreational areas
But I think one of the really neat things about the national park system. Is that we also preserve our history and
Not just the glowing parts of our history
but in some of the newer parks like Manzanar like some of the civil rights sites
We are actually talking about some of them not so wonderful parts of our history
Routes were pulled up people's lives were altered forever
[it] was an important part of our history because we have a
Constitution and it says that we have rights and these people basically were told that it doesn't apply to you
Having mane's and ours and part of the national park [system]
Allows people to come and learn [about] this chapter of history, and I think it gives people an opportunity to
[think] about their own civic responsibilities and
What we can each do to help America live up to its promises
How the government treats the citizens that's our story, so I think if we don't have that conversation
We're not doing what we should [be] [doing] here at Manzanar
We want to shout [to] the [world] that we are a great nation
willing to say that we are sorry about what we did [and]
Not only are we a democracy, but we work at it for all of us the working at it is the important part
Sue can [he] tell me Embree?
