Resilience and Beauty

We started the long drive back home around 8:00AM this morning. By 9:30AM, we reached the Mono Lake Vista Point and hopped out of the car to take some photos.

About 45 minutes later, we stopped by the side of the road somewhere past the turnoff to Mammoth Lakes to try and capture the color of the trees (aspens?). 

Doesn't quite do it justice...

In Bishop, we hit up Erick Schat's Bakkerÿ again to buy some sweets to share with our friends. Then we continued south to our last stop for the day, Manzanar National Historic Site, arriving around 11:45AM. 

Here on the blog I've written several posts about the places we've been that interpret the history of the unjust incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II (label #neverforget). This is our fourth visit to Manzanar, one of the ten incarceration sites used to detain a total of more than 110,000 people from 1942-1945. The last time we came was in 2015, when we brought R's parents with us. 

"The tower represents what the whole thing was about: imprisonment, loss of civil liberties, loss of identity. The tower was the only icon - that, and the barbed wire."
Sue Kunitomi Embrey at the 2005 dedication of the replica tower

I'm glad that the NPS continues to add things to help visitors better understand what the incarcerees experienced while living here. After going through the exhibits in the visitor center, we headed out to see two new-to-us areas: the main baseball field and Merritt Park. 

Just yesterday, the rebuilt field hosted games for the first time since the camp closed almost 80 years ago. Youth players from the Japanese American League, as well as friends and family of former incarcerees, played in tribute to the baseball teams that existed here at Manzanar and other incarceration sites during World War II. What fun - wish we could have been here to see it! 

Update: here's a great NBC News article about the event and the significance of baseball to Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war.

Put me in, Coach!

From here, we continued on the auto tour road to the recently restored Rose Garden and Merritt Park. Kuichiro Nishi, who had a nursery specializing in roses prior to his incarceration at Manzanar, started the garden in the fall of 1942. He also worked with Takio Muto and other incarcerees with gardening experience to design additions to the Rose Garden. They also built a Japanese stroll garden with water and rock features, trees, and other ornamental plants. Originally called Rose Park, then Pleasure Park, it was eventually named Merritt Park, in honor of Project Director Ralph Merritt. 

After the end of the war and the closure of Manzanar, the gardens and Merritt Park disappeared as they were covered by sand and reclaimed by nature over the years. Beginning in 2022, descendants of former incarcerees and a small cadre of volunteers worked on the restoration of the Rose Garden. Some of the rose plants represent a few varieties from the appropriate time period, but more are newer hybrids which are similar to but hardier than the originals. 

In 2008, Kuichiro Nishi's children and grandchildren assisted NPS staff and other volunteers in the excavation of Merritt Park. They returned again in 2011 to continue the restoration by reconstructing the footbridge. The effort continued over the years and was nearly complete when Tropical Storm Hilary struck the area in August 2023, flooding the park and leaving silt and debris behind in its wake. Thanks to the hard work of many people, repairs to the Rose Garden and Merritt Park were completed by mid-November last year.

“To the memory of fellow Japanese immigrants, who although ushered to this place with the breaking of friendly relations between two countries, have come to enjoy this quiet, peaceful place.”

Kuichiro Nishi's dedication representing the intent of the garden

Reconstructed footbridge

"Pool in pleasure park, Manzanar Relocation Center, Calif." Ansel Adams, 1943

Turtle rock is in the same spot as in Ansel Adams' photograph above

Seeing the lovely gardens and the baseball field today helped us to imagine what the Japanese incarcerees did to make these harsh surroundings more habitable. To create such beauty while facing such horrible injustice... just amazing.