ECHOES OF MANZANAR/ The former WWII internment camp, now undergoing

A carved, wooden sign. A pagoda-shaped police post. Miles of barbed wire.

That's what greets you at the entrance of Manzanar National Historic Site, and not much else.

Of course, the majestic, snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains loom in the background. A pair of plaques memorializes the place, and an old auditorium, visible from the entrance, is being refurbished.

But the most dominant force here, 12 miles north of Lone Pine, Calif., off U.S. 395, is silence.

It wasn't always this way. From 1942 to 1945, more than 10,000 people - most of them American citizens - lived here. They were involuntarily detained at Manzanar War Relocation Center, the first of 10 Japanese-American internment camps administered by the War Department during World War II.

Today, foundations of buildings and vestiges of Japanese-style gardens remain. A manageable dirt road takes visitors to numbered posts, which indicate where significant structures were, such as the hospital, an orphanage and a camouflage-netting factory.

And a white stone obelisk stands like a sentinel in the back, where the cemetery is located.

SILENT TESTAMENT

Though it's mostly desolate and quiet, this little spot on the backside of the Sierras still resonates today. In this post-Sept. 11, 2001, world, with homeland security, detainment and deportation becoming part of the national lexicon, Manzanar serves as a stark, sad reminder of this country's domestic actions during the last world war.

"It's really important that our country knows about what happened," said Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, an internee when she was a child, and author of the memoir "Farewell to Manzanar."

"It could happen again, if we forget about it. We're doomed to repeat it if we forget."

At its height, Manzanar was the largest "city" between Los Angeles and Reno. But this city was under tight surveillance, with guard towers, barbed wire and armed military watchmen. More than 500 wooden barracks - each divided into four apartments - housed families, young couples and strangers in cramped quarters.

Summers at this high-desert locale frequently hit 110 degrees, and winters were freezing. The barracks were made with thin, hole-ridden material, and sand often blew through the cracks.

"It was not the nicest place to live," said Sue Embry, 80, an internee and chair of a Los Angeles-based Manzanar committee that sponsors an annual pilgrimage.

"There was no privacy," she said. "The wind was always blowing. We had no freedom. It was a violation of our civil rights."

Still, internees made the best of a bad situation, shaping gardens out of cement and seedlings, building an auditorium for social functions, operating a school and running a newspaper, the Manzanar Free Press. A handful left by taking field jobs on the East Coast or volunteering to fight in the U.S. military.

When the relocation center closed in November 1945 - two months after the end of World War II - the barracks and mess halls were quickly removed. The site was abandoned and left unattended for decades.

But attention to Manzanar has resurfaced recently, particularly in light of current events. Efforts are under way to refurbish the site and establish a visitors center by the fall.

"We felt very strongly we needed to have some buildings brought back to the site," said Frank Hays, superintendent of Manzanar, which, after years of effort, was designated a national historic site on March 3, 1992.

With $642,000 annually, the National Park Service administers the 814 acres of dry, scrubby country in the Owens Valley. Mount Whitney - the highest point in the contiguous United States - stands within clear sight.

"It's a beautiful setting," Hays said. "You can kind of forget that it was harsh conditions out there, because it's such a beautiful location. We needed to represent what the living conditions were like. It was not a 'summer camp' by any means."

The park service is converting the original auditorium into a staffed, interactive visitors center, with historical exhibits, artifacts and a 15-minute film. A grand opening is scheduled for Nov. 7 and 8.

Construction workers are rebuilding guard tower No. 8. A mess hall found at the Bishop County Airport - 42 miles north - was returned to the site in December. And two original barracks are being reconstructed.

"We're very pleased with the progress," Embry said. "It's a living history out there."

The park service offers walking tours twice a day between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and a self-guided auto tour takes visitors through all the significant sights. Maps are available at the entrance.

Future projects include placing "then and now" exhibit panels at key outdoor locations and moving U.S. 395 east so the current strip can be used as a frontage and access road.

While it's open year-round, the best time to go is spring, early summer and fall. Manzanar can get oven-like in August and chilly in the winter.

For those who go to the site (about four hours north of Los Angeles), a stop at the Eastern California Museum in Independence, five miles north, is a must.

The museum features a detailed exhibit of artifacts, photographs, letters and historical documents from the internment experience. A replica of a 1943 wooden barracks contains furniture crafted by internees, and a photo exhibit by Toyo Miyatake offers a rare, revealing look at daily life inside the camp.

The free museum also showcases Owens Valley Paiute and Shoshone basketry and includes a bookstore with many books about internment and the area's history.

APPLES AND ANGST

Manzanar - which means "apple orchard" in Spanish - was not always a place of loss and displacement. The Paiute and Shoshone Indians originally settled there, taking advantage of a natural ecosystem that brought ground water to the surface.

From 1910 to 1932, a productive farm community resided there, harvesting apples and pears. Records show that a school, a blacksmith shop, a general store, a lumberyard and a packing plant supported residents.

Some apple and pear trees can still be seen in the site's northern section, although they don't get much water these days.

In 1932, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power bought the land and water rights, diverting naturally occurring water south to the growing city. The orchard dried up and was abandoned, and the mayor of Los Angeles reportedly took fruit from the last harvest and distributed it to the poor.

In 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the onset of war against Japan, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, granting broad powers to the War Department to "prescribe military areas" and "determine from which any or all persons may be excluded." As a result, about 120,000 Japanese-Americans - considered espionage and sabotage threats at the time - were relocated from the West Coast.

Federal officials decided that Manzanar was appropriately inland and desolate to be the first of 10 "temporary" detention centers. (Seven more camps were operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.)

"We were considered criminals, simply because of our race," said Wakatsuki Houston, whose memoir is now read widely in junior high schools and high schools across the country. "I'd never been in a prison before. I knew it was not right. It was a traumatic change."

Food in the mess halls was bland and often burned. Toilets in communal bathrooms had no partitions, a source of discomfort to many internees who valued discretion. Family structures were undermined. But even worse, thousands of Japanese-Americans lost their land and belongings back home while interned.

During a protest in December 1942, soldiers on guard duty killed two and at least 10 were wounded. Altogether, 143 died at Manzanar.

The cemetery at the back of the site honors those who died at the camp and has become a popular destination. In fact, Japanese- Americans from across the West Coast make an annual pilgrimage that culminates there on the last Saturday of every April.

The cemetery's obelisk features Japanese characters that read "soul consoling tower," "August 1943" and "erected by the Manzanar Japanese." Visitors have left all kinds of memorabilia at the base of the memorial, from coins, playing cards and business cards to sake, candles, American flags and copies of the U.S. Constitution.

"It's amazing, the variety of items that get left out there," Superintendent Hays said. "It's an emotional experience. People feel like they need to make some kind of connection with the site."

Yet, for decades after their release, most Japanese-Americans did not like to talk about the internment ordeal.

"It was just a humiliation and a shame, such a rejection by your country and your society," Wakatsuki Houston said.

While the federal government did offer reparations of $20,000 per person in 1988, that amount hasn't satisfied everyone.

"No amount of money could ever repay one's loss of freedom," the author of "Farewell to Manzanar" said. "You can't put a price on it."

A REMINDER FOR TODAY

In recent times, Japanese-Americans and others have commented that events after the Sept. 11 attacks and the war on terrorism have borne an eerie resemblance to those after Pearl Harbor.

Arab U.S. residents have had to register with the INS. Scores have been detained and questioned; dozens have been deported. Hate crimes were widespread in the months after Sept. 11, 2001.

"This is what war does, when we treat a group of people, without seeing them as human beings," said Wakatsuki Houston, who recently republished a hardcover version of "Farewell to Manzanar" with a new afterward addressing the fearful, post-Sept. 11 climate. "It's very important to remind people that we can just get hysterical and do the wrong thing. We gotta remember the Constitution and what we stand for."

So next time you're on the 395 on your way to Mammoth, Mono Lake, Yosemite or Reno, consider stopping by Manzanar. It's a dose of American history that may seem difficult to imagine at first, but sadly, becomes easy to understand.

CONTACT THE WRITER: rchang@notes.freedom.com

MORE INFO

Independence Chamber of Commerce, (760) 878-0084,

www.independenceca.com.

BLACK AND WHITE MAP: MANZAMAR NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

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