- [Narrator] It would be so hard to go back home
after everything happened and try
to just live your life normally.
I think that's partially why my family
just chose not to really talk about it.
They just wanted to leave it all in the past.
(emotional music)
- During World War II Manzanar was an American
incarceration camp in which Japanese Americans were
held against their will in the name of national security.
- I want to go to Manzanar because I don't think
I know my own history that well.
Both of my grandparents were held
in camps when they were children.
- My family didn't really talk about it growing up.
Whenever I'd ask about it like my grandparents
were too young to remember and they said that
they never talked about it with their parents.
- My family was actually not in the camps.
It was more like just remember, this is also something
that happened here in California which I am born
and raised in California.
- I want to come out of this you know
more knowledgeable but also I want to come out of this
with a greater understanding of what happened.
I want to understand what it felt like
and understand what they had to go through.
- Something like the story of the camps,
like visiting the camps, being there,
talking to people about it like amongst ourselves
as Japanese Americans, understanding our own story,
is so key 'cause we're not going to be able
to move forward if we don't know where we came from.
- When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,
our west coast became a potential combat zone.
Living in that zone are more than 100,000 persons
of Japanese ancestry.
Military authorities therefore determined
that all of them, citizens and aliens
alike would have to move.
The evacuees cooperated wholeheartedly.
The many loyal among them felt that this was
a sacrifice they could make
in behalf of America's war effort.
(gentle guitar music)
- The air felt clean, but also like
you're in the middle of nowhere.
Like almost like placelessness.
- It's very hot. - It's a little hot.
All things considered here.
- This amazing amazing ranger comes to meet us,
and she ushers us over to the barracks.
- A lot of Manzanar is gone, so most of
the original buildings are gone.
Manzanar wouldn't even be here for us to visit
if it weren't for the efforts of Japanese Americans
who made the pilgrimage back to the site
and then who successfully lobbied the government
to preserve it.
- These barracks have been rebuilt in the same spot
that the ones were during World War II.
The barracks here were 100 feet by 20 feet.
When you got here.
- Their immediate reaction is this is too nice.
- There's just like bunch of Japanese
slash Japanese Americans that were
squished into a very small space.
I can't imagine.
- Not comfortable.
When they came here, how long were they told
they were going to be staying?
- That must be tough to not be able
to tell your kids how long they have to expect to stay.
- I just kept thinking about the first night.
Imagine the first night walking into this barrack.
Imagine the first night with your suitcase
just like unpacked at the foot of your bed,
unsure how long you're gonna be there.
- We went outside, and while we were on the grounds
we did notice that there were like basketball courts.
- This basketball court has been redone,
but it is historically correct.
- Seeing the basketball hoops there
just proves that despite all the injustice
and things that were being placed upon them,
they didn't let it break their spirit.
Ball was still life, which is like super dope to me.
- We went into the visitor's center
and that was really fascinating obviously
seeing like all the propaganda from the time.
- It was from a nationally syndicated columnist
who said "herd 'em up, pack 'em off
"and give 'em the inside room in the Badlands.
"Let 'em be pinched, hurt, hungry and dead up against it.
"Personally I hate the Japanese,
"and that goes for all of 'em."
- The ranger took out these family records
for those of us who had families that were put in the camps.
- [Woman] Oh that's so cool.
- This list where the family's from,
part of California, and this list
where they're heading to where after
they leave camp, where they're going.
And if you look at, this is all my family.
Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, Illinois, Chicago Illinois.
I mean they made it there because that's where I'm from.
- Seeing it on paper and seeing like the actual record,
like that's like a piece of my family's
history right there you know?
Like an artifact.
- Sean, I found both your grandparents block addresses
which if we want to try and go see them,
I would probably have better luck than you did.
- [Woman] So block five is?
- Is the one where Paul was, yeah.
- [Woman] And Paul is Sean, Paul is your grandfather?
(emotional music)
This is where my grandpa's barrack was.
So yeah.
- [Woman] And now you're here.
- Now I'm here.
- They hadn't excavated the site, so our park ranger
told us that the plate had probably been
at that barrack site for over 70 years.
- We're gonna put it back.
- [Patricia] Yes.
The morning before we went to Manzanar
was the first time that my grandfather forgot my name,
and so to be at Manzanar the next day
and to see his barrack, I think for me
it was like survivors of the camps
can't be the only ones telling the story
because they're fading, but for us to make sure
that the lessons continue, we have to keep
going back to the camps whether literally or figuratively,
'cause there's so much to learn.
- It looks like...
- This is definitely, I told you it was a sewer pipe!
- 'Cause the diameter's too big, so water coming in
has to be in pressure, so you get those smaller lines.
- I am probably holding a sewage pipe.
(gentle guitar music)
- We went to the cemetery, and that was just
very like peaceful and serene.
- It's just covered in these like colorful origami cranes,
and there is this like windstorm blowing
and it was like blowing the cranes.
- The whole thing in general was actually
a lot more emotional for me than I thought it would be.
I thought I would see it, you know,
from like a historical perspective.
I didn't expect it to affect me like it did.
- When you learn something about a tragedy
the next step is sort of like
oh, what work can be done in order
to apply the lessons from camp?
- And there's like this real danger
that this same rhetoric is going to get out there
and that people are going to be
arbitrarily sent off for no reason.
- Just imagine someone just telling you
to pack your bag and leave right now.
- And it's nobody's duty to read every textbook
and take every Asian American studies course
and learn everything, just showing up
it's not like saving the world,
but I think that it's, by knowing more
and by learning more and by gaining knowledge
and building a perspective, we're ultimately
contributing to a larger consciousness.
(gentle guitar music)