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dchui — Manzanar Concentration Camp
Published: 2005-05-02 05:01:58 +0000 UTC; Views: 7623; Favourites: 90; Downloads: 511
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***********"A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched - so a Japanese American, born of Japanese parents - grows up to be a Japanese, not an American."
- Los Angeles Times
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Notice of evacuation
One spring night
The image of my wife
Holding the hands of my mother.
- unknown Japanese American
***********
I spent this last weekend with my friends visiting the Manzanar Relocation Center near Mammoth, California... the following are a few of my thoughts from the trip that we took to Manzanar, which I regard as one of the best decisions of my life.
I'll start by saying this is a hard one for me to write. I don't know if it is within my ability to articulate how I feel about the issue, but I hope that you will stick around and read this one the whole way through. It will be spread over the next few photos I post on DA.
On February 19th, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which mandated the immediate "evacuation" of all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast to "relocation centers" around the country. I use quotation marks because the words "evacuation" and "relocation centers" were originally fabrications made up by the United States Government to cover up the fact that A) the Japanese Americans were not being "evacuated", but instead imprisoned against their will, and B) that the Japanese Americans thought of the camps as concentration camps, not "relocation centers". Also, I won't get into what a concentration camp is or isn't... as one of the formerly interned Japanese Americans told me, the JA's attempt to inform others of what happened to them is in no way in competition with what happened to the Jews under Nazi Germany.
The public excuse that the government issued was that the Japanese Americans were being moved for their own protection. This seems ironic to me, because while the various internment camps did have guard towers, those guard towers had their guns "permanently aimed inwards, into the camp". Regardless of the United States' government's attempt to pamper the issue at the time, it didn't change the facts: thousands of Japanese Americans were forced, against their will, to give up the lives they had worked so hard to achieve in order to be shipped off to lonely and remote internment camps scattered throughout the country.
"Like a dog,
I am commanded
At a bayonet point.
My heart is inflamed
With burning anguish"
The night the first convoy of Japanese Americans arrived at Manzanar, they were instructed to go to a barn full of straw and fill bags that they were given with the straw. This was to serve as their beds for the first night's rest; these were later replaced by standard-issue army cots. The dwellings that they entered were miserable. They were ercilessly dusty, and there was no privacy because of the cramped quarters and the government's decision not to include curtains or walls in the shower-rooms. In the evening, when everybody had finally gotten to sleep, the wind would come. It would whip around and carry sand and dust from the outside into the cracks in the corrogated aluminum walls of the barracks.
"Vexed beyond my strength,
I wept. And then the wind came
Drying up all tears."
Today, there is little left of Manzanar. The barracks, latrines, etc. are long gone - either blown away in time or purposely destroyed by the United States government post-internment.
What is left, though, are the memories. Just walking around this place made me sad, because of everything that it represents to me as an American. I am a Chinese-American, but I do not feel detached from the Japanese American internment just because I am not Japanese; the internment of the Japanese Americans could have happened to any race, and it can still happen today. Many of the things that Chinese-Americans had to face coming up in this country are the same struggles we see today: I didn't want to bring it up, but look at the Rodney King beating. One of the police officers peed on the guy when they were done beating the shit out of him. I grew up sheltered, thinking that racism was a thing of the past; how could there be racism if I had black kids in my school, and they were just as loved (or hated) as the other kids? It really wasn't till I stepped outside of the Palo Alto bubble that I started realizing how bad things are.. I won't get into how I came to realize racism now - that is a story for another day. Still, it makes me disgusted and sad when I think of the racism and prejudice that still exists today. This is why I feel it is of the utmost importance to understand the cultural roots of racism, its history, and its manifestations.
Please take this stuff in small doses, but really do try and think about what your liberty and your freedom means to you. What is it worth to you, and what would you do if tomorrow it were taken away from you?
I will write more as it comes to me. I rarely ask for responses from those who view my Deviant Art gallery, but I would encourage anyone who is reading this to share their own experiences with prejudice and racism, how it has impacted their lives, and perhaps, if they have time, what people think we can do to change the way things are.
- Chui
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Comments: 86
An amazing picture, and such a sad and powerful story... There will always be horrible people like that, with a great fear of people different from themselves. However, I can't grasp how some people can be that cynical and cold-hearted. We know all about racism here in Europe, with the grotesque happenings in WWII. Some choose not to believe it, because the stories are so horrible, they seem surreal. I've talked to a woman who had her mother taken away by the nazis, because they were jews. Somehow, she managed to escape them, but she said it was terrible. Most of her family were killed in concentration camps, all because Hitler directed a hatred and fear towards a certain race of people. Just because they were skilled, had money and stuck together through thick and thin.
I guess the US government did what they did because they were afraid.. Which is just plain stupidity! People shouldn't generalize like that.. Even if one person did something wrong, it doesn't mean that his/her whole race did the same thing. It's sad.. and it won't change unless people start relalizing the truth; We're all the same on the inside. There are both good and bad people in every race!
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Thank you so much for the feedback... what happened in Nazi Germany is so terrifying to me also. I have read about many of the atrocities committed, especially those committed by Josef Mengel - the Angel of Death.... it really gives me nightmares.
The cause of Japanese Internment was publicized as "massive hysteria", as you said, but in a further post on the subject I hope to dispel that. Massive hysteria was simply an excuse for the internment of the JA's, which was ultimately caused by the economic desire of non-JA's, specifically caucasians, to take over the entire farming industry that the JA's would leave behind.
- Chui
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I see.. Can't wait to read the rest of your thoughts then
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This might be a bit too meaningful for deviantart, eg, "Kool pic dude XD, yEAH racists are bad 
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Thank you... I hopefully can go beyond the usual "Come ye, marvel at my wondrous photography" routine. Really, the photography is nothing without the message.
- Chui
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When I first saw the photo I wanted to say that I didn't really like how the concrete can be seen in the bottom, and thought it'd be better if it were cropped just below the mountains.
Then I read what you had in the description. Now the concrete seems a lot more appropriate.
As for my experiences with racism, I'm glad to say that they've been few and far between. As cdaile mentioned, growing up/living in Australia makes this sort of thing seem pretty strange. I've lived in an area almost my whole life where there's a really broad cross-section of ethnic groups/people living in the same area. Throughout my school years I was probably in a minority of "white Australian" students, had mostly Asian friends and never really even knew what racism meant in a practical sense until my last couple of years in highschool. And then it was mostly because we looked at the things other countries had done.
Of course, racism does exist here. Obviously. It just doesn't have these sort of 'flashpoints' for people to look at and say, "that's what racism does."
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Hey there,
thank you for the feedback and for sharing your experiences... Australia really sounds like a swell place. We get areas like this, where racism is not as prevalent, but it comes at a cost. As a student growing up in elementary and middle-school, I thought racism wasn't there because I knew black kids, white kids, muslim kids, kids of all colors and I played with the regularly. But when I took a step outside of the situation, I realized that those black kids in my class were a member of a very small minority... I mean, we had two black guys in my High School senior class. Two! And how many hundred's of Asians?
Perhaps in Australia you guys have a better dispersion in terms of percentages... over here, I have found that oftentimes even the most "integrated" schools still have racial biases, if not in its students then in its admissions statistics. Enter UC San Diego, for example.
- Chui
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I guess it depends on where in the country you go. I live in an area that's supposed to be the most multicultural region in Sydney, but if you were to go about an hour, hour and a half north it'd be a completely different environment and attitude on the whole thing.
And even around here, there's a big difference between the attitudes of people and of institutions. The education system (since I'm doing a teacing degree, that's what I know the most about) is pretty racist intrinsic ways. It's really surprising.
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I read a little story thing last year in my english class about a japanese camp here in washington... It;s kind of sad but.. The annual fair (puallup fair) is held on the ground where the imprisonment camp used to be... It;s personaly kind of errie for me to go to that place with my family.. See a bunch of kids running and laughing and know that at one time people were kept there by force. And it's ALSO weird because.. I was born in germany and when I was a little baby my parents had taken me and my older sister (she was 3 at the time.. making me only one year old. AWWWW X3) to a museum or something... About the nazi prison camps... I'm sort of GLAD I don;t remember it because as long as I can remember,.. The thought of having come from a place where a man would torture and kill people because of their religion... Is appauling and to be honest... Makes me cry. When I learned that the puallup fair grounds was the site of a camp.. I went there and started to cry. It just hits me so heavy to know that I step on the ground where somone could have died or something! But I am so rambling and no one cares XD SO!! On that note... I am shutting up anddddd... Oh yes... BEAUTIFUL PHOTOGRAPH!! XD
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Hey there...
thank you for sharing your experiences. I know how it feels; really, going to the location makes such a huge difference to me. Now that I have been at Manzanar, I feel that I know Manzanar like I might know a close relative. Through photography, I hope that I can help the Manzanar camp promote its own services...
- Chui
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*Nods and smiles* It's very awsome that you went there
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Beautiful photo, gorgeous in fact.
Speaking of racism, i'm from Sweden. Over here, contrary to popular belief, everyone is not blonde with big breasts. In fact, in recent years islam has become the 2nd largest religion in this country because we have accepted a lot of political refugees from the middle east. The media has spoken a lot about racism but i didn't notice it much at my previous school because we only had 5 or 6 immigrants (myself included, i'm english) and noone treated them any differently.
However, when i started at the school i'm at now things changed. I hadn't really understood that there were other cultures in my own country. I'd visited spain and france and several other countries but i hadn't seen this cultural diversity at home. At my new school, we have about 50% immigrants and a student population of over a thousand. During my first day at school, i was walking down one of the main corridors which had lots of tables on the right-hand side with people sitting at each of the tables and i could swear i heard a different language being spoken at each of the tables. In my class, we have swedes, finns, eritreans, turks, arabs, armenians, and several other nationalities that i can't even remember. What i like about my school is that the racism isn't really there. After two years most of the negative prejudice i had against other people is completely washed away because of the way everyone gets along. It's a wonderful thing to see. However when you see some of the other schools and some of the areas in Stockholm racism is rampant and theres fighting in the streets between neo-nazis and immigrants, it's horrible. But what i also realized is that racism isn't just white people hating black/asian/arab people (as someone mentioned above) the racism that i see as a white person exists between for example arabs and somalians or turks and armenians aswell. Theres all kinds of prejudice and racism amongst them and this is something that you don't realize until you talk to them. Prejudice can be based on something historical between two ethnic groups that happened hundreds of years ago and that they continue to fight over today.
Another interesting thing is that a lot of swedish people complain about the immigrants being a problem and the immigrants being responsible for crime etc etc but what one realizes is that they're not talking about immigrants in general, because they don't put me or my finnish friends in that group, they're talking about black people, people who look different. But the statistics include all immigrants, the white ones included. It's unfair to attribute all of that to the people who happen to look different when in fact you can't tell someones country of birth by the color of their skin. You can only judge someone by their own actions, you can't hold someone responsible for the actions of their ancestors.
I can't say that all the prejudice i have is gone but most of it is and i think the best way to prevent prejudice and racism is to actually talk to people, to give everyone a chance. I don't know if this has made any sense or not but there you go.
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[quote]"But what i also realized is that racism isn't just white people hating black/asian/arab people (as someone mentioned above) the racism that i see as a white person exists between for example arabs and somalians or turks and armenians aswell. Theres all kinds of prejudice and racism amongst them and this is something that you don't realize until you talk to them. Prejudice can be based on something historical between two ethnic groups that happened hundreds of years ago and that they continue to fight over today."[/quote]
Thank you so much for sharing your story... indeed even I had a kind of Swed-o-Vision that catered largely to beautiful women with large breasts, so I thank you for helping to clarify that Sweden is indeed a place of great ethnic diversity. It is so true that racism doesn't just exist from white people to minorities, but also from minorities to other minorities, and minorities to white people... it is very much a destructive cycle, and I think the only way to cure it is exactly as you mentioned - to better integrate society in a way that people are forced to work together and can then see that all of the stereotypes and racist facades are bullshit.
You mentioned that prejudice can be based on something historical between two ethnic groups: this one really reminded me of the Rape of Nanking, which happened during wartime between China and Japan. I won't get into it right now, but essentially, Japan stripped an entire generation of Chinese of its dignity through rape, pillage, and abuse on a huge scale. Japanese men were said to have skewered old women and babies alike on their bayonets, just for fun... they called the women they raped "comfort girls". Today there is a great deal of tension between China and Japan because the Japanese refuse to acknowledge that the Rape of Nanking happened... and they refuse to apologize for it. There are more reasons, but this is one of the big ones.
How I personally feel about it, as a Chinese-American, is resentful. It makes me feel resentful that Japan is not owning up to its atrocities, and that the younger generation of Japanese in Japan are not being educated about what really happened. I don't know how this changes the way I view each Japanese as a whole, but I'm sure it must have some affect... regardless of my attempt to curb my own racism.
"Another interesting thing is that a lot of swedish people complain about the immigrants being a problem and the immigrants being responsible for crime etc etc but what one realizes is that they're not talking about immigrants in general, because they don't put me or my finnish friends in that group, they're talking about black people, people who look different. But the statistics include all immigrants, the white ones included. It's unfair to attribute all of that to the people who happen to look different when in fact you can't tell someones country of birth by the color of their skin. You can only judge someone by their own actions, you can't hold someone responsible for the actions of their ancestors."
This is dead-on. If you get a chance, do read "Strangers of a Different Shore" by Ronald Takaki. You will see that many of the things you mentioned, especially the cornering of people that look different (blacks, Asians, etc) has been one of the foundations of this country. Even if a migrant Japanese and a migrant Italian were just as new to the country as the other, the Japanese-American was always regarded as an outsider while the Italian-American (who also experienced a degree of racism) had more options and liberties available to them.
What you wrote makes a lot of sense... I thank you sincerely for sharing your thoughts.. hopefully we can make more dialogue about this in the future!
- Chui
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Absolutely, i'm always happy to share my thought. I didn't know about the Rape of Nanking but it sounds similar to what i was referring to. I was referring to, for example, the Armenian genocide by the Turkish which they still haven't owed up to today. Since Turkey is a candidate for the EU now some people think that the EU should make owing up to it's atrocities one of the conditions for them to be allowed to enter the EU. There are a lot of other examples aswell, but i can't seem to recall any more at the moment. I look forward to future dialogues!
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Excellent piece man, the photo is awesome! Superb composition, the lines of the flagpole, it's shadow and the flowerbed making very strong lines, leading the eye.
The sky looks amazing, just how did you get such a dark blue sky?
As for the written piece; my heart goes out to the Japanese Americans who became imprisoned in the so called 'land of the free'. Sure they weren't concentration camps in the Nazi Germany sense but it's not like the people were put in military guarded 5-star hotels either. People suffered for no reason other than their heritage.
Sometimes it suits a nation to see its people united together under one flag, but I think fear can be very quick to shatter that view to pieces.
Why can't we all just get along
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Hey there
Thank you for the feedback... the concept that it was "fear" that caused all of this is another thing that I hope to address in future Manzanar deviations; in fact, many of the interned JA's I talked to explained that the idea that there was "massive wartime hysteria" was really no more than a front for the true reason behind the internment. The JA's I talked to told me that the hysteria was artificial and man-made, driven mostly by the economic desire of caucasian farmers to take over the farmlands of the Japanese-Americans (indeed, this ended up happening and prices on fruit went from 15 cents per ton to $25 per ton).
Rigod-damn-diculous.
- Chui
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I would have thought so, in times of trouble people look to leaders for strength, the strong lead the weak. Unfortunately the strong are not always the righteous and use their strength to manipulate other for personal gain and so on...
It is very possible indeed that the mass hysteria was generated by those who would profit from it.
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You would be interested in some photos from Auschwitz I have in my gallery. Do a photojournalism/events view - htat should bring them up quickly.
My views? The human race never learns from its own bitter and shameful mistakes.
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racism is a strange thing to me, and one i do not quite understand. i do not know if you have read "the color of water," but i had to read it for my history class and i rather liked it. the book is about a boy who had a white jewish mother, a black father (and later stepfather), how she raised 12 children by herself after both of her husbands died, in the projects,<.b> and all of them grew up to be doctors, nurses, teachers, and writers. i grew up not in detroit, but close enough that i have friends there and have had occasion to drive there at night once in awhile. a lot of the feeling where i grew up is that racism means "white people who hate you because you're black," but i've always thought that this is a gross oversimplification. where i grew up, other races use this as justifaction to hate whites, and the whites in turn use this as an excuse to be mistrustful of anyone who isn't white, because "they all assume we're racists, anyway."
i don't understand why people choose to hate each other over the amount of certain chemicals in their skin, or any other reason (hotel rwanda proved to me that sometimes race has nothing to do with color). my blood is just as red as anyone elses, my tears just as salty, and i don't understand... i just don't understand why the external still determines the worth of a person. i wish to God it were not so. i'm a sheltered, skinny, goth-wannabe white girl from a middle-class family, and if that is all i'm worth then it's not much. if that is all i am to be judged by then my voice is worthless. i may as well (to quote one of the image boards i frequent) whine, "i'm gonna go to my room and listen to linkin park!" (no offense to them; i like the band... they amuse me)
i want to be more than what circumstance has me (female, white, middle-class, american, straight, whatever it is), and i long to be acknowledged for it. if i wish to remain unhypocritical, i must give everyone else the same chance.
so let it be.
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Beautifully written... thank you so much for sharing. I have read The Color of Water... it is actually one of my favorite books; it made me feel both sad and hopeful about the future of our country.
Don't ever downplay yourself because of your circumstances (female, white, middle-class, american, straight). With each of these characteristics is a huge part of your identity as a person. I have actually been told by some of my white friends that being white makes them feel like they have less of a cultural identity - that is, if they have no real ties to an ancestry that lies outside of this country. But I think that, regardless of what race you are, every culture has a story that can be learned from.
Hotel Rwanda was a great example that you used... also a very sad movie... what was even more sad was how inpersonal my view of the Rwanda crisis was prior to seeing that movie.
Anyway... I'd getter get to bed because I'm under the weather, I just wanted to thank you for dropping by and sharing your thoughts and your background.
Long live goth-wannabe white girl from middle class family's 
- Chui
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thanks. sorry the whole thing's in bold, i forgot to close a tag 
what little cultural identity i have, i'm trying to learn more about. the major bloodlines in my family are norwegian (vikings! wooo~! 
oh, and i don't necessarily dismiss those traits, but i have been dismissed because of them. i find it so charming about people, that prejudice is one of the traits we all have in common *eyeroll*
sleep well!
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my first thought: wow, what a pretty photo. Then I scrolled down to see that you had written quite a bit about this photo. I read every word of it. It makes the photo no less beautiful, but gives it a heavy aura. I like the way everything contrasts in the picture. The light and dark of the clouds; coexisting but struggling to overtake one another. The picture is symbolic in so many ways. I absolutely love it. It's crisp, clear, light, and dark all at the same time. 
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Thank you so much for taking the time... if this gets a DD, it will certainly be more worthwhile than my "I hate the world" DD.
Have a good one bro!
- Chui
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chui.. powerful words and powerful moving image to go with it. it's thought provoking.. i was sitting here thinking how lucky i am in australia that i don't readily see racism such as this (although there were issues when australia was first 'colonised' by the english and the aboriginals went through horrific times), i can only image.
but i do hear of things and i see other forms of racism such as vilification for beliefs. i guess persecution of any kind (be it for your culture or faith) is really quite horrible. you've caught a moment in time and reminded us how lucky and unlucky we are, and that we need to be careful that we don't pass on these issues to our children. our children are our future, but we shape them today with our words and thoughts. let's pass on the memories, but not the pain and hate. let them learn from the past and not re-live it.
thanks for sharing both your image and thoughts and your heart with us on this one.
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Thank you so much for your feedback...
your message about passing on the right values to your kids is key. My parents have always raised me to love anybody, regardless of their race... even though they have unwittingly enforced a few stereotypes about other races, I feel that their heart has always been in the right place. I hope that when I have kids, I will be able to impart my feelings and values upon them, and that they will be able to interpret my own values and take what is useful from them for themselves.
Australia sounds like such an awesome place... I was actually contemplating traveling abroad there. The people sound amazing, and a friend of mine who went said it was one of the best decisions of her life!!
- Chui
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i couldn't agree with you more.. teach them and let them take from you what they will..
i hope my children will get that from me one day too!
oh, and do stop over, it's a lovely country.. very open and lovely and friendly and free
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I really appriciate you posting something so heartfelt to yourself...
The photo is absolutly amazing, the deep contrast of the sky and mountains are increadible... beautiful, beautiful capture
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No time for reading now, have to run of to school, well drive... Lazy me... But how the **** did you get the colours like this???? I wll read it later this day
You allways have so well thought texts to you pics! And BTW, on the goodness of people.... I forgot my carkey in the cardoor while I was out taking pics.... When I came back, it was still there
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wow!
the contrast crispness of the clouds blows my mind
amazing work
on your experience there
all i can say is ive visited a camp here in canada (yes canada had them as well) and im sicked that contries (allies) that are supoosed to be the "good guys" are using the same methods as their enemies. wats worse is the losing contries after the war get condemned for the same things that the winners commit
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Here by chance I find you making comments on the same things that disturb me! And I stumbled on David's gallery as well!
Naturally I am interested, knowing various Japanese people and living there for 7 1/2 years.
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woah thats pretty sweet!
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Yup sweet, then I realised I saw his avatar on your site and it wasn't just chance! Duh! And anyway that should be Daniel. I've corrected it in a comment to him on Manzanar.
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Thank you so much Alex...
I had no idea there were such camps in Canada - were they for Japanese American internment or for other ethnicities? I agree that it is appalling some of the war-crimes that our side committed. You know, one thing people need to get over is this idea: yes the Japanese did some *terrible, terrible* stuff to us during the war - including Rape of Nanking, Bataan Death March, torturing soldiers in the Phillipines, etc... but it needs to be realized that Japanese Americans and Japanese in Japan are an entirely different group of people, with an entirely different group of values.
In fact, the Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) proved their loyalty to be above and beyond anything America had ever seen before. The Japanese battalion called the 44nd Regiment are probably "the most decorated military unit in United States History"... and were an integral part of America's World War II. Members of the 442nd were there when they finally got to the gates of the concentration camps in Germany.
- Chui
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they were japanese canadian internment camps, david suzuki was dentained in one as a child in vancouver i beleive. one person who resently had alot to say on this issue was hes one of my fave artists and had to be temporaraly banned due to ppl spamming him relentlessly. it seems that evil begets more evil in war and some one put it quiet well that "in war its does not determine who is right, just who is left" boths sides tried to hide the horrid things they did. i had no idea about the 442nd id lke to research more about them now that ive been enlightened
much thanks daniel
(p.s. im a huge fan of ur landscapes 
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