Of all the films I had seen on Manzanar, the one thing I didn't know about was the Japanese stone gardens the internees had created. In many of the housing blocks were these gorgeous stone gardens, with ponds at the time they had been created.
They had lovely symbolisms with Zen meanings like that seeing a crane and turtle together (the shapes of the rocks) leads to longevity.
These gardens had been lost to time and the elements but began being excavated and restored in 1994-- [Landscape Gardens and Gardeners at Manzanar Relocation Center]
Where I had come to Manzanar simply for recognizing it was something for Americans to not forget, I saw a more important reminder in these rock gardens and there were many throughout the site. Man will find a way to create beauty and with his creating of it, he will find comfort. The beauty he creates will give other people joy and the benefits do not end with one generation.
It made me want to visit the Japanese gardens in Portland as soon as I can work it out and to this summer create a Japanese type rock garden here at the farm. I have a feel of it several places but there is a place nothing has ever worked well right in front of our large living room window. The farm needs the energy from it.
Especially, I would like to create a Japanese lantern with stone which although I have one out of concrete, which I spent considerable muscle and energy pulling away from the bamboo, I hadn't ever made one. I saw how beautiful a stone one would be and began to look for the right rocks to make it happen.
When I asked the ranger on duty in the bookstore if there were any books on these wonderful gardens, he said not yet, but there was someone there at the time making a documentary on them. I will look forward to seeing it if it really comes out as this is something that deserves far more attention than I have seen it get.
He then told us about another of the gardens we had not seen, which required some walking, and that some considered to be the most beautiful. When we walked into it, I will have to say it made the most beautiful photographs which are both the first and last I have here.
Several artists are famous for having been interned here and gone on to create art other places. [Henry Fukuhara] is one example who first painted there as a prisoner to pass the time.
Many paintings were on display at a small gallery-- all created at Manzanar.
It truly is an extremely inspirational, creative and beautiful place to spend time-- when it's not a prison.
Because I felt our time at Manzanar was so wonderful, I decided to put all the photos onto a Picasa site, as a combination of the place and how it impacts a person who comes there-- [Manzanar May 2011]
19 comments:
This is so fascinating. I new about these camps but not this wonderful detail. I must make a plan to visit there sometime.
I love everything about this post and I look forward to seeing your Japanese garden. Thank you for all your words on Manzanar -- it's an important chapter in our history that has been woefully ignored.
A wonderful example of coping by creating art! You know that these gardens are called kara sansui (rock and water) Some of the most beautiful date from the 13th 14th century Japan and are influenced by Zen. They also suggest in micro-perspective, vast landscape tableau and therefore are a form of psychological freedom in containment. I never knew about this aspect of the American concentration camps. Thanks.
I did not know about the rock gardens, Rain, so thanks for sharing this. Henry Fukuhara lived locally and taught locally. My friend Chris went to paint each year with him at Manzanar and is in the gallery there. I got to meet him once at PV Art Center. This is the link to his death this year: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/14/local/la-me-henry-fukuhara14-2010feb14
Again, thanks. I'm going to go check out your Picasa gallery.
A beautiful, inspiring and sober post, Rain. You've done it - I must now go to Manzanar. In fact, all your post re: the eastern Sierra have inspired me to go there.
I didn't know about these rock gardens there, or the prolific artists that lived at the camp.
I think it is most fitting on this Memorial Day weekend to remember our citizens who were wrongfully imprisoned during war. I have a feeling I will stand there at Manzanar and weep over the folly of mankind.
The internment of people of Japanese ancestry was definitely a black mark on our nation's history. But you have to look at it through the lens of the time that it occurred.
We had just suffered thousands of casualties of sailors, soldiers and civilians at Pearl Harbor. A sneak attack that even many in the Japanese military said was shameful and without honor. Also a contributing factor was the revolt on the Hawaiian island of Niihau. A Japanese pilot from the Pearl Harbor attack crash landed there and was captured by the American farmers. But the Japanese living on the island turned on the Americans to help the pilot escape and murder one of the Americans. This is said to have weighed heavily on the decision to inter the Japanese on the West Coast.
And while horrible by modern standards the camps were not a prison. In some of the camps the residents were allowed to go into the nearby town to watch movies and socialize.
And there were Japanese spies in California and elsewhere before the war.
I suggest you read the book, Unbroken if you want to learn about the horrors of how the Japanese treated prisoners of war. They performed medical experiments on and beat and starved and worked to death thousands of military and civilian prisoners.
In German POW camps, which we all learned about in school as horrible places, only 1% of US POWs died. In Japanese hands, 37% of US Prisoners died.
And today the same justification has been to use the patriot act (I really love how they name these things) as a way to take away American freedoms. The people in these camps were taken from their homes, their property confiscated, many had been born in the US, most were citizens, but that's okay because of the country from which they had come? Fortunately two Republican presidents said it was not.
I just wish right wing Americans would value the Constitution more than they currently do for all their talk because as it stands, they allow fear for their physical safety to justify anything. AND the POW camps and their treatments varied a lot but the Germans sure didn't treat the Jews well now did they?
The argument that this was okay could well take your freedom next time!
As for Pearl Harbor, that's a whole different discussion and I am not going there other than to say when you go to war with people (and our embargo of Japan was an act of war), the end result is they don't always announce their plans ahead of time. They were out to take out our fleet which they thought would help them win the war. Turned out to be wrong and yes an American tragedy. The Japanese had a sense of honor back then which was a bit different than our own concept of it which means we don't commit suicide if we lose a battle... that I know of anyway.
The people in these camps could only move from them if they went to other states not on the west coast which means they lost all they owned. Okay by you? I've heard some other Americans profited a lot from that happening. I am just glad that those two Republican presidents did say it was wrongly done because the way the Republicans talk today it seems anything government wants to do is okay where it involves their supposed safety!
This blog though is on the positive side of it all and I consider one of the positive sides those who decided to bring back to the surface these gardens.
I did not say it was the correct thing to do. I am just looking at it from an historical perspective. And I was not making it political either. I am glad the government paid reparations for the loss of property. Like you said 99% of the people interred were probably loyal Americans. I am glad that parts of the camps have been preserved, so that we can remember what happened there. Is there an explanation at the visitors center about what lead to the internments?
They have an explanation at the Pearl Harbor memorial now that explains the Japanese side of the story.
There was a lot of material there as well as a video which we took time to watch. I didn't spend a lot of time in the center because we were on our way north and I wanted most time outside, walking around; but I hope to go back someday when I can take more time.
You know the only spies I have ever heard of being a factor in WWII were in Hawaii and interestingly there weren't many of them taken into camps from there. Maybe because so many Hawaiians were Japanese. I don't honestly know the reason but they were mostly taken only from Oregon, Washington, California, and Annie informed us also British Columbia.
"they allow fear for their physical safety" This phrase was very insightful. When you look at the list of Republicans serving now in Congress it becomes clear that most of them are chicken hawks: http://www.awolbush.com/whoserved.html
Hi - I am really happy to discover this. cool job!
Not sure if you know or not, but there is an old camp up by Tulelake on the California Oregon border.
Yes, I knew about that one. It's not nearly as pretty a setting. Finding out about these gardens made me wonder if they were in all the camps or if the people who were sent to Manzanar were from uniquely qualified backgrounds to create such things as well as had the building materials nearby in the mountains. If you read the link, you see that they had master gardeners there to make this possible.
I looked at all your pictures and was struck by a few things....The great beauty and ingenuity of the people who were interred there---in that POW place, to create as much beauty as possible. They can keep calling it a "relocation center" but the reality is so obviously different. These people were Prisoners Of War. Americans, treated like 'the enemy'.
Shameful, Shameful, Shameful. That any of them survived this horror and humilation is a testement to the Human Spirit!
Beautiful post, Rain.
Rain, have you ever read "Farewell To Manzanar"?
Beautiful, beautiful photos, Rain. Thanks for the treat.
Cop Car
Wow, amazing stuff. I didn't know about them either.
My dentist was interned in one of these camps, but he was a young boy at the time, and I don't know if there was a focus on art. Perhaps I'll ask him some time.
I'm not sure if you're a fiction reader, but if you are, your recent travels might but you in the mood for When the Emperor Was Divine, which I reviewed on my blog back in 2006...
http://jellyjules.com/?p=325
Wonderful pictures. Even our quite commercial Japantown retains some of this natural sensibility. That community really doesn't want to see anyone throwing bombs about ...
I have never been to Manzanar, but we did stop by Tule Lake in Siskiyou County -- not nearly such a lovely setting and in 2011 hadn't been much cared for.
Yes, Tule Lake and many others had none of this beauty. You would really enjoy visiting Manzanar if you can as it really is about the way some can overcome dire situations. They had the buildings there too where you see their terrible situation and this wasn't a gentle climate. They just overcame but many were creative people before they got thrown into prison even though they'd done nothing. It's both a horror and a testament to the human spirit. It is hard to believe what humans did to other humans-- not the only example sadly :(
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