After feasting, I cleaned my dishes, straightened up the campsite and put everything into the bear lockers, I drove to the Manzanar War Relocation Center eight miles north of Lone Pine to pay my respects.
When I was growing up in Spanaway, Washington, my mother was friends with a "nisei" who was interned there. I wish I could turn back the hands of time and relive what this lady had to go through. I drove to the cemetery and said a prayer. I later drove around the camp to collect my thoughts.
The Manzanar War Relocation Center was a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II. Manazanar was one of ten camps at which Japanese-Americans, both citizens and resident "aliens," were detained as a "precautionary measure" during World War II. Located at the foot of the imposing, Manzanar held 10,046 internees at its height. Many Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated and interned. Most lost everything they owned. The camp was closed in November 1945. Many internees did not want to leave because most had nothing to return to. One hundred and thirty-five people died here, but only 15 were buried there (the rest were buried in hometown cemeteries). There is also a pet cemetery, too.
An obelisk shrine was built in the cemetery by a group of internees. There is an inscription in Japanese on the shrine that reads, "Monument to console the souls of the dead." The shrine currently is draped in strings of origami and has offerings of personal items left by survivors and visitors. The park service periodically itemizes and collects these items in order to gauge the changing feelings of visitors.
I left an origami crane I made myself and placed it at the base of the shrine. The winds will carry my crane to the site where my mother's friend once resided.
