Manzanar Japanese Internment Barrack
I've driven by this location quite a few times and always wondered why a lone guard tower was standing right off of Highway 395 near Lone Pine. We had some time before needing to get back to the motel and stopped here to explore. This turned out to be a pretty emotional experience. I grew up in Hawaii and had a lot of Japanese friends when I lived there. This was one of the Japanese interment camps during WWII.
I read a story called "Baseball Saved Us" which is about life in an interment camp like this one to my students each year. To see it up close and in person was pretty horrifying. Each of these barracks housed four families in a room about the size of my family room. The showers and restrooms were located in the middle of eight buildings like this one. Each block had a mess hall that provided food for everyone which was grown and raised here.
You can take tours and go inside of the buildings during normal times, but everything was shut down because of the corona virus. I was able to talk to a ranger and she said that at its peak the camp held over 11,000 people. You can drive around the camp and stop at different locations and explore on your own. Let me tell you the place is pretty enormous, you could spend hours here and you would never know it driving down Highway 395. I know, I've driven by many times without even a second thought, but that won't happen any more.
Manzanar Japanese Internment Barrack
I've driven by this location quite a few times and always wondered why a lone guard tower was standing right off of Highway 395 near Lone Pine. We had some time before needing to get back to the motel and stopped here to explore. This turned out to be a pretty emotional experience. I grew up in Hawaii and had a lot of Japanese friends when I lived there. This was one of the Japanese interment camps during WWII.
I read a story called "Baseball Saved Us" which is about life in an interment camp like this one to my students each year. To see it up close and in person was pretty horrifying. Each of these barracks housed four families in a room about the size of my family room. The showers and restrooms were located in the middle of eight buildings like this one. Each block had a mess hall that provided food for everyone which was grown and raised here.
You can take tours and go inside of the buildings during normal times, but everything was shut down because of the corona virus. I was able to talk to a ranger and she said that at its peak the camp held over 11,000 people. You can drive around the camp and stop at different locations and explore on your own. Let me tell you the place is pretty enormous, you could spend hours here and you would never know it driving down Highway 395. I know, I've driven by many times without even a second thought, but that won't happen any more.