Manzanar National Historic Site was established to preserve the stories of the internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, and to serve as a reminder to this and future generations of the fragility of American civil liberties.
Beginning in the summer of 1942, the War Relocation Authority (WRA) hired Japanese American crews to install linoleum floors and hang sheetrock on walls and ceilings. But other promised improvements never appeared. People who could afford it bought items from catalogs or had belongings delivered from storage. Some people built furniture from scrap wood, nails, and cement that they “borrowed for the duration.”
On March 7, 1942, Lieutenant General John DeWitt announced that the US Army would build a “reception center” for Japanese Americans at Manzanar. Two weeks later, the first people forced from their Los Angeles homes arrived here to a chaotic construction zone. There weren’t enough barracks, and some were without windows, doors, or roofs. The green lumber used for the buildings shrank quickly in the dry air, creating gaps and knotholes.
From 1942 to 1945, eight US Army guard towers loomed over the more than 11,000 Japanese Americans held in Manzanar. For most of that time, US Military Police manned the towers, a visual reminder that the unconstitutionally incarcerated people were not allowed to leave without permission.
The War Relocation Authority (WRA) paid Japanese Americans to build ironing rooms near the laundry rooms in each block. They completed construction in early July 1942, yet by August Tanaka noted, “Still unused for their original purpose are the ironing rooms on each block.”
In each block, two latrines—one for women and one for men—served about 300 people. Women’s latrines had ten toilets, men’s had eight and a urinal. Francis Kikuchi recalled, “The pots were sitting right next to each other . . . if you're going, you're sitting there rubbing elbows."
Each of the 36 blocks had recreation halls—a barracks on the southwest corner of the block that was not used for living space. Recreation halls served as libraries, churches, classrooms, and places to learn arts and music or hold club meetings; one hall even served as Manzanar’s museum.
The indigenous first people of this valley refer to themselves as Nüümü. We are all standing on Nüümü Land. Their government given name, which more commonly used by non natives, is Paiute/Shoshone (Newe for Shoshone). The most important acknowledgement is that the Nüümü people are still here living and existing on their ancestral land.
Water in the desert is ever important to the human life there. Water in the Owens Valley has supplied life to many generations and groups of people near and far.
