Last weekend I went up to Mammoth to snowboard with friends. If you know anything about snowboarding, or snow-sports in general, "cha-ching" is the operative sound. We're talkin' gas for the drive up and back, appropriate attire (i had to buy snow stuff), food, lodging, equipment rental and lift ticket.
Super expensive.
Anyway, on the drive back I was starting to get anxious about paying rent...thinking about all the money I spent over the weekend, just feeling like I should have stayed home and saved cash. I'm a temp at my job, I can be let go at anytime, the economy sucks, it's just a bad time to be spending money.
Bad, bad, bad.
And then I noticed a road sign off the US 395 that said something about a museum in Manzanar and voice in my head said, "Stop there. You'll get some culture."
So, I stopped. Having no idea what Manzanar is...or was.
Manzanar was the site of what the U.S. military calls a, "war relocation camp," for Japanese during World War II. It's off the US 395 near Lone Pine, a dry, desolate piece of land, over-shadowed by a range of jagged, snowy mountains. It's creepy and that feeling is heightened by the fact that everything is covered in dust making the sky so hazy, you can't tell the time of day.
There were two tiny stone buildings at the entrance and what looked like an airplane hanger in the middle. That's where the museum was. When you walk in, the first thing you see is this:
Children, women, men, with Japanese ancestry were rounded up by the U.S. government and put in detention camps around the country in 1942, during WWII. FDR was worried about espionage and a possible Japanese take over of the West Coast.
Families were forced to leave homes and businesses behind -- at gunpoint -- to live in prison barracks behind barbed wire. They had to fill out loyalty questionnaires asking them to renounce allegiance to Japan and enlist in the U.S. military.
3 years later, in 1945, the Japanese imprisoned at Manzanar were given $25 bucks and a bus ticket to anywhere outside of the West Coast. No one was found guilty of espionage, but families were separated in the process and 146 people died in the camp.
Everyone on their way back from a fun filled weekend of skiing should stop at Manzanar for a reality check.
It's important to know this history, so it is never repeated.
That stop made my Mammoth trip priceless.
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