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Manzanar

Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, it was one of the smaller internment camps. It is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California's Owens Valley, between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, approximately 230 mi north of Los Angeles. Manzanar means "apple orchard" in Spanish. The Manzanar National Historic Site, which preserves and interprets the legacy of Japanese American incarceration in the United States, was identified by the United States National Park Service as the best-preserved of the ten former camp sites.

The first Japanese Americans arrived at Manzanar in March 1942, just one month after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, to build the camp their families would be staying in. Manzanar was in operation as an internment camp from 1942 until 1945. Since the last of those incarcerated left in 1945, former detainees and others have worked to protect Manzanar and to establish it as a National Historic Site to ensure that the history of the site, along with the stories of those who were incarcerated there, is recorded for current and future generations. The primary focus is the Japanese American incarceration era, as specified in the legislation that created the Manzanar National Historic Site. The site also interprets the former town of Manzanar, the ranch days, the settlement by the Owens Valley Paiute, and the role that water played in shaping the history of the Owens Valley.

Background
Manzanar was first inhabited by Indigenous Americans nearly 10,000 years ago. Approximately 1,500 years ago, the area was settled by the Owens Valley Paiute, who ranged across the Owens Valley from Long Valley on the north to Owens Lake on the south, and from the crest of the Sierra Nevada on the west to the Inyo Mountains on the east. When European American settlers first arrived in the Owens Valley in the mid-19th century, they found a number of large Paiute villages in the Manzanar area. John Shepherd, one of the first of the new settlers, homesteaded 160 acre of land 3 mi north of Georges Creek in 1864. With the help of Owens Valley Paiute field workers and laborers, he expanded his ranch to 2000 acre.

In 1905, George Chaffey, an agricultural developer from Southern California, purchased Shepherd's ranch and subdivided it, along with other adjacent ranches. He founded the town of Manzanar in 1910, along the main line of the Southern Pacific. By August 1911, the town's population was approaching 200. The company built an irrigation system over an area of 1000 acre and planted about 20,000 fruit trees. By 1920, the town had more than 25 homes, a two-room school, a town hall, and a general store. Also at that time, nearly 5000 acre of apple, pear, and peach trees were under cultivation; along with crops of grapes, prunes, potatoes, corn and alfalfa; and large vegetable and flower gardens.

As early as March 1905, the City of Los Angeles began acquiring water rights in the Owens Valley. In 1913, it completed construction of its 233 mi Los Angeles Aqueduct, In dry years, Los Angeles pumped ground water and drained all surface water, diverting all of it into its aqueduct and leaving Owens Valley ranchers without water. Without water for irrigation, the holdout ranchers were forced off their ranches and out of their communities; that included the town of Manzanar, which was abandoned by 1929. Manzanar remained uninhabited until the United States Army leased 6200 acre from the City of Los Angeles for the Manzanar War Relocation Center.

Establishment
After the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Government swiftly moved to begin solving the "Japanese Problem" on the West Coast of the United States. In the evening hours of that same day, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested selected "enemy aliens", including more than 5,500 Issei men. Many citizens in California were alarmed about potential activities by people of Japanese descent.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the Secretary of War to designate military commanders to prescribe military areas and to exclude "any or all persons" from such areas. The order also authorized the construction of what were later called "relocation centers" by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), to house those who were to be excluded. This order resulted in the forced relocation of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were native-born American citizens; the rest had been prevented from becoming citizens by federal law. Over 110,000 were incarcerated in the ten concentration camps located far inland and away from the coast.

Manzanar was the first of the ten concentration camps to be established, and began accepting detainees in March 1942. Initially, it was a temporary "reception center", known as the Owens Valley Reception Center from March 21, 1942, to May 31, 1942. At that time, it was operated by the US Army's Wartime Civilian Control Administration (WCCA). The first director of the camp was Calvin E. Triggs, a longtime veteran of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a signature program of the Second New Deal. Many of his fellow employees had worked in that agency. Manzanar, according to one insider, was “manned just about 100% by the WPA.”  Drawing on experiences derived from New Deal era road building, Triggs, funded primarily through the WPA, supervised the installation of such features as guard towers and spotlights.

The Owens Valley Reception Center was transferred to the WRA on June 1, 1942, and officially became the "Manzanar War Relocation Center." The first Japanese Americans to arrive at Manzanar were volunteers who helped build the camp. By mid–April, up to 1,000 Japanese Americans were arriving daily, and by July, the population of the camp neared 10,000. About 90 percent of the incarcerated were from the Los Angeles area, with the rest coming from Stockton, California; and Bainbridge Island, Washington. Many were farmers and fishermen. Manzanar held 10,046 adults and children at its peak, and a total of 11,070 were incarcerated there.

Climate and location
The Manzanar facility was located between Lone Pine and Independence. The weather at Manzanar caused suffering for the inmates, few of whom were accustomed to the extremes of the area's climate. While the majority of people were from the Los Angeles area, some were from places with much different climates (such as Bainbridge Island in Washington). The temporary buildings were inadequate to shield people from the weather. The Owens Valley lies at an elevation of about 4000 ft.

Summers on the desert floor of the Owens Valley are generally hot, with temperatures often exceeding 100 °F. Winters bring occasional snowfall and daytime temperatures that often drop into the 40 °F range. At night, temperatures are generally 30 to 40 °F (16.7 to 22.2 °C) lower than the daytime highs, and high winds are common day or night.

The area's mean annual precipitation is barely five inches (12.7 cm). The ever-present dust was a continual problem due to the frequent high winds; so much so that people usually woke up in the morning covered from head to toe with a fine layer of dust, and they constantly had to sweep dirt out of the barracks.

"In the summer, the heat was unbearable," said former Manzanar inmate Ralph Lazo. "In the winter, the sparsely rationed oil didn't adequately heat the tar paper-covered pine barracks with knotholes in the floor. The wind would blow so hard, it would toss rocks around."

Camp layout and facilities
The camp site was situated on 6200 acre at Manzanar, leased from the City of Los Angeles, with the developed portion covering approximately 540 acre. Eight guard towers equipped with machine guns were located at intervals around the perimeter fence, which was topped by barbed wire. The grid layout used in the camp was standard, and a similar layout was used in all of the relocation centers.

The residential area was about one square mile (2.6 km2), and consisted of 36 blocks of hastily constructed, 20 ft by 100 ft tarpaper barracks, with each family (up to eight people) living in a single 20 ft by 25 ft "apartment" in the barracks.

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, a Manzanar survivor, described the living conditions in her book: "After dinner we were taken to Block 16, a cluster of fifteen barracks that had just been finished a day or so earlier—although finished was hardly a word for it. The shacks were built of pine planking covered with tarpaper. They sat on concrete footings, with about two feet of open space between the floorboards and the ground. Gaps showed between the planks, and as the weeks passed and the green wood dried out, the gaps widened. Knotholes gaped in the uncovered floor." In the book, she goes on to explain the size and layout of the barracks. They were divided into six units that were sixteen long by twenty feet wide, and a single light bulb hung from the ceiling. They had an oil stove for heat as well as two army blankets each, some mattress covers and steel army cots.

These apartments consisted of partitions with no ceilings, eliminating any chance of privacy. Lack of privacy was a major problem, especially since the camp had communal men's and women's latrines. Former Manzanar inmate Rosie Kakuuchi said that the communal facilities were "[o]ne of the hardest things to endure", adding that neither the latrines nor showers had partitions or stalls.

Each residential block also had a communal mess hall (large enough to serve 300 people at one time), a laundry room, a recreation hall, an ironing room, and a heating oil storage tank, although Block 33 lacked a recreation hall. In addition to the residential blocks, Manzanar had 34 blocks that had staff housing, camp administration offices, two warehouses, a garage, a camp hospital, and 24 firebreaks.

The camp had school facilities, a high-school auditorium (that was also used as a theatre), staff housing, chicken and hog farms, churches, a cemetery, a post office, a hospital, an orphanage, two community latrines, an outdoor theater, and other necessary amenities that one would expect to find in most American cities. Some of the facilities were not built until after the camp had been operating for a while. The camp perimeter had eight watchtowers manned by armed military police, and it was enclosed by five-strand barbed wire. There were sentry posts at the main entrance. Many of the camp administration staff lived inside the fence at the camp, though the military police lived outside the fence.

Commercial facilities
Typical businesses such as a cooperative store and other shops and a camp newspaper were operated by the internees. A camouflage net factory, to provide the nets to various military units, was operated on the site. An experimental plantation for producing natural rubber from the Guayule plant was built and operated.

Before a hospital was built, doctors in the camp faced many difficulties, including treating internees for diseases such as measles, chickenpox, whooping cough, and diarrhea. Treatment facilities were often the barracks, which did not include running water or heating. Once the Manzanar Hospital was built, it included a kitchen, operating rooms, treatment wards, laboratories, and other facilities. All medical treatment in Manzanar was provided at no charge.

Manzanar Children's Village, an orphanage housing 101 Japanese-American orphans from June 1942 to September 1945, operated within the camp. Children incarcerated there were from multiple orphanages in the Los Angeles area as well as locations in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. Infants born to unmarried mothers in other WRA camps were also sent to Children's Village over the next three years.

The 61 remaining children in Maryknoll, Shonien and the Salvation Army Home were slated for removal. On June 23, 1942, they were bused, under armed guard, with several adult caretakers, from Los Angeles to Manzanar. Over the next few months, approximately thirty more children from Washington, Oregon and Alaska, mostly orphans who had been living with non-Japanese foster families, would arrive in Manzanar.

Life in camp
After being uprooted from their homes and communities, the incarcerated people had to endure primitive, sub-standard conditions and lack of privacy. They had to wait in line for meals, at latrines, and at the laundry room. Each camp was intended to be self-sufficient, and Manzanar was no exception. Cooperatives operated various services, such as the camp newspaper,  beauty salons and barber shops, shoe repair, libraries, and more. In addition, there were some who raised chickens, hogs, and vegetables, and cultivated the existing orchards for fruit. During the time Manzanar was in operation, 188 weddings were held, 541 children were born in the camp, and between 135 and 146 individuals died.

Life in the camp became more difficult as sickness spread throughout it. The housing sector of the camp was just 500 acres and held more than ten thousand prisoners at its peak. The compactness of the camp led many people to fall ill even though they were given vaccines upon arrival to the camp. The water at Manzanar was unclean, and caused many inmates to suffer from dysentery.

Some of those interned at the camp supported the policies implemented by the War Relocation Authority, causing them to be targeted by others in the camp. On December 6, 1942, a riot broke out and two internees were killed. Togo Tanaka was one of those targeted, but he escaped by disguising himself and mingling into the crowd that was searching for him. Others were outraged that their patriotism was being questioned simply because of their ethnic heritage. Despite the hardships endured, the internees gradually "turned [the] concentration camp into a community" by "[spending] their days creating beautiful things".

Food
The barracks at Manzanar had no cooking areas, and all meals were served at block mess halls. The mess hall lines were long and stretched outside regardless of weather. The cafeteria-style eating was named by the 1980s Congressional Committee on the Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) as a cause of the deterioration of the family due to children wanting to eat with their friends instead of their families, and families not always being able to eat together. There was a strict meal schedule, with one young detainee noting "We eat from 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM o'clock in the morning 12:00 PM-1:00 PM in afternoon and 5:00 PM-6:00 in night and on Sunday we eat 8:00 AM-9:00." Food at Manzanar was based on military requirements. Meals usually consisted of hot rice and vegetables, since meat was scarce due to rationing.

In 1944, a chicken ranch and a hog farm began operation, providing the camp with meat. As many of the internees were farmers, they used their knowledge of fertilizers, irrigation, land reclamation, and cultivation to successfully grow productive gardens. They made their own soy sauce and tofu. Many families had small gardens outside their barracks.

The food varied in quality, but was mostly substandard compared to the food the internees ate prior to incarceration. Togo Tanaka described how people "got sick from eating ill-prepared food." Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga described trying to take care of her newborn daughter, saying that the child was so sick that, while "[m]ost infants double their weight, birth weight, at six months", her daughter "had not doubled her weight in a year".

The food in Manzanar was heavily starchy and low quality, including Vienna sausages, canned string beans, hot dogs, and apple sauce. Outside of the sausages and hot dogs, meat was rare, usually consisting of chicken or mutton that was heavily breaded and fried. Frank Kikuchi, an internee at Manzanar, stated that some of the newspapers lied to the American public by telling them that the "Japs [in the camps] are getting steaks, chops, eggs, or eating high off the hog." Camp, school, and individual gardens eventually helped supplement the menu in the mess halls. Internees also snuck out of the camp to go fishing, often bringing back their catches to the camp.

Harry Ueno accused camp administrators and leaders in the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) of stealing food meant for the internees and then selling it on the black market. During the December 1942 camp riot, Ueno was arrested for allegedly beating another internee who was a member of the JACL.

Employment
Most of the adults were employed at Manzanar to keep the camp running. In order for the camps to be self-sufficient, the adults were employed in a variety of jobs to supply the camp and the military. Jobs included clothing and furniture manufacturing, farming and tending orchards, military manufacturing such as camouflage netting and experimental rubber, teaching, civil service jobs such as police, fire fighters, and nursing, and general service jobs operating stores, beauty parlors, and a bank.

A farm and orchards provided vegetables and fruits for use by the camp, and people of all ages worked to maintain them. By the summer of 1943, camp gardens and farms were producing potatoes, onions, cucumbers, Chinese cabbage, watermelon, eggplant, tomatoes, aster, red radishes, and peppers. Eventually, there were more than 400 acres of farms producing more than 80 percent of the produce used by the camp. In early 1944, a chicken ranch began operation, and in late April of the same year, the camp opened a hog farm. Both operations provided welcome meat supplements to the diet.

Shortly after being interned, Togo Tanaka and Joe Masaoka were hired by anthropologist Robert Redfield as documentary historians for the camp. In addition to his work at the Manzanar Free Press, he filed hundreds of reports to the WRA that often criticized those in charge at the camp and the living conditions in the camp.

Unskilled workers earned US$8 per month ($0 per month as of 2024), semi-skilled workers earned $12 per month ($0 per month as of 2024), skilled workers made $16 per month ($0 per month as of 2024), and professionals earned $19 per month ($0 per month as of 2024). In addition, everybody received $3.60 per month ($0 per month as of 2024) as a clothing allowance.

Manzanar Free Press
The Manzanar Free Press was first published April 11, 1942, and was published through the October 19, 1945, issue. It was published with both Japanese and English sections, with the Japanese section added on July 14, 1942. Between the first issue and the May 31, 1942, issue, it was published at the Manzanar Assembly Center, which was operated by the Wartime Civil Control Administration. After that, it was published at the Manzanar Relocation Center until it ceased publication.

The paper was originally published as four pages biweekly which were hand-typed and mimeographed. The circulation increased as the number of people in the camp grew, the release increased to three issues weekly, and a printing press was acquired, allowing the paper to be typeset beginning on July 22, 1942. The page count also increased to six.

Journalists who reported for the newspaper include Togo Tanaka, who was the English section editor of the Rafu Shimpo before being incarcerated. Tanaka also delivered the Free Press before working as a journalist for them. While working as a reporter for the Free Press, Tanaka wrote hundreds of articles documenting the everyday life in the camp. Beginning on July 22, 1942, Chiye Mori, poet and journalist, was listed as an editor.

Despite the name of the newspaper, the War Relocation Authority (WRA) controlled the content of the paper and used it to publish announcements from the camp administration, news from other camps, orders, rules and guidelines from the WRA, and upcoming camp events, in addition to the regular content. Some content was not allowed to be published. The standard content included articles about life in the camps, sports scores and coverage, coverage of the war, and so on.

Recreation
People made life at Manzanar more tolerable through recreation. They participated in sports, including baseball, football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, softball, and martial arts. A nine-hole golf course was built at the camp. Lou Frizzell served as the musical director, and under his mentorship Mary Nomura became known as the "songbird of Manzanar" for her performances at dances and other camp events. Theatre performances—for internees, camp administration and WRA staff, and even for some members of the surrounding communities—included original productions by internees as well as traditional Japanese works of kabuki and noh.

Internees, many of whom were relocated from their landscaping businesses in the Los Angeles area, personalized and beautified their barren surroundings by building elaborate gardens and parks, which often included pools, waterfalls, and rock ornaments. Competitions were often held between landscapers as they created gardens in the public spaces of the camp (such as between barracks). The camp administration even allowed some gardens to be created outside the camp. These helped create a sense of community and gave the internees a place to heal. Remnants of some of the gardens, pools, and rock ornaments are still present at Manzanar, and there are plans to restore at least some of them.

One of the most popular pastimes for those incarcerated at Manzanar was baseball. The men there formed almost 100 baseball teams, and the women formed 14. Regular seasons were established, teams were divided into leagues, and championship games were held. The teams included both professional and amateur players. Some of the players viewed playing baseball as a way to prove their loyalty to America, treating it like wearing an American flag. Photographer Ansel Adams took his photo (right) as part of his effort to show how those incarcerated at Manzanar "overcome [their] sense of defeat and despair."

Many Japanese cultural celebrations were continued, though the official photos allowed out by the WRA rarely showed them. The New Year tradition of mochitsuki—pounding glutinous rice into mochi—was regularly covered by the camp newspaper. Craftsman in the camp carved geta for many of the residents, though the official photography only pointed out that they were useful for keeping above the dusty ground.

Manzanar Riot
Although most quietly accepted their fate during World War II, there was some resistance in the camps. Poston, Heart Mountain, Topaz, and Tule Lake each had civil disturbances about wage differences, black marketing of sugar, food shortages, intergenerational friction, rumors of "informers" reporting to the camp administration or the FBI, and other issues. The most serious incident occurred at Manzanar on December 5–6, 1942 (with some of the actions on both sides carrying over into the following days), and became known as the "Manzanar Revolt" or "Manzanar Riot".

Some of the tension that precipitated the riot was related to work availability and the pay of those jobs, with Nisei and members of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) getting preferential treatment. After several months of tension between those who supported the JACL and a group of Kibei (Japanese Americans educated in Japan), rumors spread that sugar and meat shortages were the result of black marketing by camp administrators. To make matters worse, JACL leader Fred Tayama was beaten by six masked men on the evening of December 5. Harry Ueno, the leader of the Kitchen Workers Union, and two others suspected of involvement, were arrested. The other two suspects were questioned and released, but Ueno was removed from Manzanar.

About 200 internees met on the morning of December 6 in the gardens at the Block 22 mess hall to discuss what they should do, and another meeting was scheduled for a few hours later. Between two and four thousand people gathered at the meeting where they listened to speeches and chose five people to present their grievances to the camp director. The crowd decided to follow the five representatives, which caused the camp director to tell the military police to muster in order to be available to control the crowd. The five representatives demanded that Ueno be released, but the camp director did not immediately agree.

After the crowd began getting more unruly, the director finally agreed to release Ueno if the crowd agreed he should still stand trial, no one attempted to break him out of the camp jail, the five representatives would discuss any further wants with the director, the protesting crowds would disperse and not reassemble, and the five would work to dispel and quiet the protesters. Ueno was then returned to the camp jail in the early evening.

When the five representatives went to verify that Ueno was in the jail, the crowd again returned to protest. Instead of dispersing as asked, they broke into groups to try to find Tayama and kill him. When they were unable to find him in the hospital, they began searching all through the camp for Tayama as well as Tokie Slocum and Togo Tanaka, two other suspected collaborators. When they were unable to find any of them, the searchers began returning toward the jail.

While the smaller search parties were searching the camp, the camp director had been trying to negotiate with the five representatives. This appeared to work initially, but the crowd gradually became more angry and started throwing bottles and rocks at the soldiers. The military police responded with tear gas to disperse them. As people ran to avoid the tear gas, some in the crowd pushed a driverless truck toward the jail. At that moment, the military police fired into the crowd, killing a 17-year-old boy instantly. A 21-year-old man who was shot in the abdomen died a few days later. At least nine to ten other prisoners were wounded, and a military police corporal was wounded by a ricocheting bullet.

That night, some inmates continued attacking suspected collaborators and meeting in small groups while avoiding military police patrols. Over the next several days, internees marked as suspected collaborators were quietly removed from the camp with their families in order to protect them from being beaten or killed by the protesters.

=== 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd regimental Combat Team === The vanguard of Japanese American (JA) combat units was the legendary 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) made up of soldiers in the Hawaii National Guard that was formed in June 1942. The training record of the 100th Battalion at Camp McCoy WI from June to December 1942 convinced the War Department to authorize the formation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) on February 1, 1943. On August 21, 1943, the 100th Battalion was deployed to Oran in North Africa. This unit became the War Department’s test on whether JA soldiers could be trusted in combat when it landed in Italy in September 1943 as part of the 34th Infantry Division. The unparalleled bravery of the 100th Battalion in the first weeks of combat forever answered this question of trust, paving the way for the 442nd RCT to join them in June 1944.

Because of the 100th Battalion's sterling training record and the Varsity Victory Volunteers, a group of University of Hawaii ROTC students who received positive publicity for their volunteer civilian labor for the U.S. Army, along with many organizations and leaders in Hawaii and on the mainland lobbying the government to allow Japanese Americans to serve in the armed forces, President Roosevelt authorized the formation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) on Feb. 1, 1943. When the announcement about the new unit was made, 10,000 young men in Hawaii signed up from which 2,686 were selected, and along with 1,182 from the mainland, they were sent to Camp Shelby in Mississippi for basic training in April 1943. Along with the cadre of those already in the Army, roughly 2/3 of the 442nd RCT were from Hawaii and 1/3 from the mainland.

Of the nearly 160,000 people of Japanese descent living in Hawaii in 1940, fewer than 2,000 were incarcerated compared to the mass incarceration of those on the West Coast; thus, less than 2% of the soldiers from the islands had families in the camps.

Closure
The WRA closed Manzanar when the final internee left at 11:00 a.m. on November 21, 1945. It was the sixth camp to be closed. Although the Japanese Americans had been brought to the Owens Valley by the United States Government, they had to leave the camp and travel to their next destinations on their own. The WRA gave each person $25 ($0 today), one-way train or bus fare, and meals to those who had less than $600 ($0 today).

While many left the camp voluntarily, a significant number refused to leave because they had no place to go after having lost everything when they were forcibly uprooted and removed from their homes. As such, they had to be forcibly removed once again, this time from Manzanar. Indeed, those who refused to leave were generally removed from their barracks, sometimes by force, even if they had no place to go.

Between 135 and 146 Japanese Americans died at Manzanar. Fifteen were buried there, but only five graves remain, as most were reburied elsewhere by their families. The Manzanar cemetery site is marked by a monument that was built by stonemason Ryozo Kado in 1943. An inscription in Japanese on the front (east side) of the monument reads 慰霊塔 ('Soul Consoling Tower': ireitō=Mandarin: wèi-líng-tǎ ‘consoling-soul monument’ ). The inscription on the back (west side) reads "Erected by the Manzanar Japanese" on the left-hand column, and "August 1943" on the right-hand column.

After the camp was closed, the site eventually returned to its original state. Within a couple of years, all the structures had been removed, with the exception of the two sentry posts at the entrance, the cemetery monument, and the former Manzanar High School auditorium, which was purchased by the County of Inyo. The County leased the auditorium to the Independence Veterans of Foreign Wars, who used it as a meeting facility and community theater until 1951. After that, the building was used as a maintenance facility by the Inyo County Road Department.

The site also retained numerous building foundations, portions of the water and sewer systems, the outline of the road grid, some landscaping, and much more. Despite four years of use, the site also retains evidence of the ranches and of the town of Manzanar, as well as artifacts from the days of the Owens Valley Paiute settlement.

Preservation and remembrance
During the war, the War Relocation Authority hired photographers Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange to document through pictures the Japanese-Americans impacted by the forced relocation, including Manzanar. Togo Tanaka and Joe Masaoka were hired by anthropologist Robert Redfield as documentary historians for the camp on behalf of the WRA.

Manzanar Pilgrimage
On December 21, 1969, about 150 people departed Los Angeles by car and bus, headed for Manzanar. It was the first official annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, though two ministers—the Reverend Sentoku Mayeda and the Reverend Shoichi Wakahiro—had been making annual pilgrimages to Manzanar since the camp closed in 1945.

The non-profit Manzanar Committee, formerly led by Sue Kunitomi Embrey, has sponsored the Pilgrimage since 1969. The event is held annually on the last Saturday of April with hundreds of visitors of all ages and backgrounds, including former inmates, gathering at the Manzanar cemetery to remember the incarceration. The hope is that participants can learn about it and help ensure that what is generally accepted to be a tragic chapter in American history is neither forgotten nor repeated. The program traditionally consists of speakers, cultural performances, an interfaith service to memorialize those who died at Manzanar, and Ondo dancing.

In 1997, the Manzanar At Dusk program became a part of the Pilgrimage. The program attracts local area residents, as well as descendants of Manzanar's ranch days and the town of Manzanar. Through small-group discussions, the event gives participants the opportunity to hear directly from those who had been there and to talk about the relevance of what had happened at Manzanar to their own lives.

Since the September 11 attacks, American Muslims have participated in the Pilgrimage to promote and increase awareness of civil rights protections in the wake of widespread suspicions harbored against them post-9/11. A group of 150 Muslims visited in 2017, in part to compare treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II with how Muslims are treated following the 9/11 attacks. Over 2,000 people visited the site on April 27, 2019, for the 50th anniversary of the first pilgrimage, including a number of Muslim speakers, and a group of Muslims held afternoon prayers at the monument.

Designations
The Manzanar Committee's efforts resulted in the State of California naming Manzanar as California Historical Landmark #850 in 1972, with an historical marker being placed at the sentry post on April 14, 1973. Manzanar, which had been historically owned by the City of Los Angeles, was registered as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1976.

The Manzanar Committee also spearheaded efforts for Manzanar to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and in February 1985, Manzanar was designated a National Historic Landmark. Embrey and the committee, along with California representative Mel Levine, led the effort to have Manzanar designated a National Historic Site, and on March 3, 1992, President George H. W. Bush signed House Resolution 543 into law. This act of Congress established the Manzanar National Historic Site "to provide for the protection and interpretation of the historical, cultural, and natural resources associated with the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II." Five years later, the National Park Service acquired 814 acre of land at Manzanar from the City of Los Angeles. It was the first of the camps to be designated as a National Historical Site.

After Congress named Manzanar a National Historic Site and gave the National Park Service the job of restoring the site in 1992, protests against its creation emerged. Letters were sent to the National Park Service included statements that Manzanar should be portrayed as a guest housing center, with others stating that calling the site a concentration camp is "treason", threatening dismissal campaigns against National Park Service employees and other related individuals, threatening to destroy buildings, and objecting to the use of the phrase "concentration camp" on signage at the site. The California State historical marker was hacked and stained, with the first "C" of "concentration camp" ground off. A man describing himself as a World War II veteran stated that he had driven 200 miles to urinate on the marker.

Monument facilities and setting
The site features a visitor center with a gift shop, housed in the historically restored Manzanar High School Auditorium with a reconstructed stage proscenium. The auditorium and the two sentry posts at the entrance are the only original structures from the time the camp was operating during World War II. Permanent exhibits tell the stories of the internee transportation to Manzanar, the Owens Valley Paiute, the ranchers, the town of Manzanar, the role that water played in shaping the history of the Owens Valley, and one that plays a video of Ronald Reagan signing the Civil Liberties Act.

An "interpretive center" helps visitors gain an understanding of some of the internees' experiences. The exhibits in the center are constructed with materials that would have been used—or are similar to those used—when the camp was in operation. Details of camp experiences are from all ten of the relocation centers. A driving tour with 27 points of interest takes visitors around the site.

A mess hall, salvaged from a closing military facility, was added to the site in 2002. The replica guard tower was built in 2005. The Manzanar cemetery, where some of the internees who died at the camp were buried, also contains the memorial obelisk, which was built by masons in the camp in August 1943. All of the remains have been removed to other locations.

The site features restored sentry posts at the camp entrance, a replica of a camp guard tower built in 2005, a self-guided tour road, and wayside exhibits. Staff offer guided tours and other educational programs, including a Junior Ranger educational program for children between four and fifteen years of age.

Reconstruction
Under most circumstances, the National Park Service discourages the reconstruction of structures and artifacts that are no longer extant, but allows for exceptions when "there is no alternative that would accomplish the park's interpretive mission, there is sufficient data to enable an accurate reconstruction," and "the reconstruction occurs on the original location." On the basis that these criteria were met, and after extensive discussion with the Japanese-American community, the NPS decided to proceed with a reconstruction of some elements of the original site alongside preservation of those remnants that survive.

The National Park Service is reconstructing one of the 36 residential blocks as a demonstration block (Block 14, adjacent to and west of the Visitor Center). One barrack appears as it would have when Japanese Americans first arrived at Manzanar in 1942, while another has been reconstructed to represent barracks life in 1945. Exhibits in these barracks opened on April 16, 2015. A restored World War II mess hall, moved to the site from Bishop Airport in 2002, was opened to visitors in late 2010. The Manzanar National Historic Site also unveiled its virtual museum on May 17, 2010.

National Park Service staff have continued to uncover artifacts from throughout Manzanar's history, the result of archaeological digs that have also excavated several of the gardens designed and built there, including the noted Merritt Park (also known as Pleasure Park). In progress is a classroom exhibit that will be housed in the Block 9 barracks and an historic replica of the Block 9 women's latrine (opened in October 2016, but with no interpretive exhibit materials at this time).

Reception of and discussion regarding Manzanar
The Manzanar site had 1,275,195 people visit from 2000 through December 2016. The National Park Service's interpretation of events and experiences has been described as both "[willing] to memorialize a shameful, unconstitutional policy" and "providing a shortcut around the unjust suffering and often insurmountable adversity imposed by the internment". Congressman Mel Levine said the site should "serve as a reminder of the grievous errors and inhumane policies we pursued domestically during World War II and a reminder that we must never again allow such actions to occur in this country."

Academics have criticized those who initiated and implemented the WRA relocation policy and members of the JACL for supporting the WRA policies. They have also pointed out that the majority of accounts of the relocation published within the first few decades following the closure of the camps have been from the perspective of the WRA and the JACL.

Terminology
Since the end of World War II, there has been debate over the terminology used to refer to Manzanar and the other camps in which Americans of Japanese ancestry and their immigrant parents were incarcerated by the United States Government during the war. Manzanar has been referred to as a "War Relocation Authority center", "War Relocation Center", "relocation camp", "relocation center", "internment camp", "incarceration camp",  "prison camp", and "concentration camp".

Prior to the opening of an exhibit about the American camps at Ellis Island, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the National Park Service, which manages Ellis Island, expressed concern regarding the use of the term "concentration camp" in the exhibit. At a meeting held at the offices of the AJC in New York City, leaders representing Japanese Americans and Jewish Americans reached an understanding about the use of the term, and the Japanese American National Museum and the AJC issued a joint statement:

"A concentration camp is a place where people are imprisoned not because of any crimes they have committed, but simply because of who they are. Although many groups have been singled out for such persecution throughout history, the term 'concentration camp' was first used at the turn of the [20th] century in the Spanish American and Boer Wars. During World War II, America's concentration camps were clearly distinguishable from Nazi Germany's. Nazi camps were places of torture, barbarous medical experiments and summary executions; some were extermination centers with gas chambers."

Films and television
A made-for-television movie, Farewell to Manzanar aired on NBC in 1976. It was based on the 1973 memoir of the same name, written by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, who was incarcerated at Manzanar as a child, and her husband James D. Houston. In 2011, the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) announced that they had negotiated the rights to the movie, and that they would make it available for purchase on DVD.

The 1990 feature film Come See the Paradise detailed the forced removal and incarceration at Manzanar of a Japanese American family from Los Angeles.

In the 1984 film The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi opens up to his student Daniel about the dual loss of his wife and son in childbirth at the Manzanar internment camp; the actor who played Mr. Miyagi, Pat Morita, was interned for two years at Manzanar with his parents.

The short film, A Song for Manzanar, depicts the true story of a detainee and her struggle to remain hopeful for her son and stay in contact with her family in Hiroshima.

In "Baku", the 2018 season three episode of The Man in the High Castle TV series, Frank Frink is executed for his resistance against the Japanese occupation by Kenpeitai inspector Kido.

Music
Folk/country musician Tom Russell wrote "Manzanar", a song about the Japanese American incarceration, that was released on his album Box of Visions (1993). Laurie Lewis covered the song on her album Seeing Things (1998), adding the koto to her performance. The Asian American jazz fusion band Hiroshima has a song entitled "Manzanar", inspired by the incarceration, on its album The Bridge (2003). Hiroshima's song "Living in America", on its album titled East (1990), contains the phrase "I still remember Manzanar". Fort Minor's song "Kenji", from the album The Rising Tied (2005), tells the true story of Mike Shinoda's family including their experiences during their imprisonment at Manzanar. The band Channel 3 recorded a song titled "Manzanar" about the incarceration.

American composer Steve Heitzeg's work "Green Hope After Black Rain (Symphony for the Survivors of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Manzanar Concentration Camp)" is a memorial to the victims of the 1945 atomic bombings of the two Japanese cities as well as the Manzanar camp. It includes percussion elements made from Hiroshima and Nagasaki trees as well as stones from Manzanar. It was premiered in 2022 by the Saint Paul Civic Symphony in Minnesota.

Literature
The 1994 novel Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson contains scenes and details relating to Japanese Americans from the state of Washington and their incarceration experiences at Manzanar. A 1999 film of the same name was based on the book.

title: Manzanar


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Puff pastry

Puff pastry, also known as pâte feuilletée, is a flaky light pastry made from a laminated dough composed of dough (détrempe) and butter or other solid fat (beurrage). The butter is put inside the dough (or vice versa), making a paton that is repeatedly folded and rolled out before baking.

The gaps that form between the layers left by the fat melting are pushed (leavened) by the water turning into steam during the baking process.

History
The oldest known recipe for puff pastry in France was written in a charter by bishop Robert of Amiens in 1311. However, the first recipe using the technique of tourage (the action of putting a piece of butter inside the dough and folding several time the dough) was published in 1651 by François Pierre La Varenne in Le cuisinier français. But the technique is considered the idea of the famous painter Claude Gellée when he was an apprentice baker in 1612. The story goes that Lorrain was making a type of very buttery bread for his sick father, and the process of rolling the butter into the bread dough created a croissant-like finished product. The modern French puff pastry was then developed and improved by the chef M. Feuillet and Antonin Carême.

Puff pastry also has a long history in Spain, perhaps through Arab or Moorish influences: the first known recipe of puff pastry using butter or lard and following the Arab technique of making each layer separately, appears in the Spanish recipe book Libro del arte de cozina (Book on the art of cooking) written by Domingo Hernández de Maceras and published in 1607. Maceras, the head cook in one of the colleges of the University of Salamanca, already distinguished between filled puff pastry recipes and puff pastry tarts, and even mentions leavened preparations. Francisco Martínez Motiño, head chef to Philip II of Spain (1527–1598), also gave several recipes of puff pastry in his Arte de cocina, pastelería, bizcochería y conservería published in 1611. In this book, puff pastry is abundantly used, particularly to make savoury game pies. In his novel El Buscón (published in 1627 but written in 1604), the Spanish writer Francisco de Quevedo caustically suggests that the puff pastry pies sold at the inn of some Simón de Paredes in Madrid were being adulterated with human flesh.

Production

The production of puff pastry dough can be time-consuming, because it must be kept at a temperature of approximately 16 °C (60 °F) to keep shortening from becoming runny, and must rest in between folds to allow gluten strands time to link up and thus retain layering.

The number of layers in puff pastry is calculated with the formula:

 * $$\ell=(f + 1)^n$$

where $$\ell$$ is the number of finished layers, $$f$$ the number of folds in a single folding move, and $$n$$ is how many times the folding move is repeated. For example, twice-folding (i.e. in three), repeated four times gives $$(2 + 1)^4 = 81$$ layers. Chef Julia Child recommends 73 layers for regular pâte feuilletée and 729 (i.e. 36) layers for pâte feuilletée fine (in Volume II of her Mastering the Art of French Cooking textbook).

Commercially made puff pastry is available in grocery stores. Common types of fat used include butter, vegetable shortenings, lard and margarine. Butter is the most common type used because it provides a richer taste and superior mouthfeel. Shortenings and lard have a higher melting point therefore puff pastry made with either will rise more than pastry made with butter, if made correctly. Puff pastry made in this manner will, however, often have a waxy mouthfeel and more bland flavor. Specialized margarine formulated for high plasticity (the ability to spread very thin without breaking apart) is used for industrial production of puff pastry.

Variants and distinctions

Since the process of making puff pastry is generally laborious and time-intensive, faster recipes are fairly common: known as "blitz", "rough puff", or "flaky pastry". Many of these recipes combine the butter into the détrempe rather than adding it in the folding process and are thus similar to a folded short crust.

Puff pastry can also be leavened with baker's yeast to create croissants, Danish pastry or pain au chocolat, though such preparations are not universally considered puff pastries.

Puff pastry differs from phyllo (filo) pastry, though puff pastry can be substituted for phyllo in some applications. Phyllo dough is made with flour, water, and fat and is stretched to size rather than rolled. When preparing phyllo dough, a small amount of oil or melted fat (usually butter) is brushed on one layer of dough and is topped with another layer, a process repeated as often as desired. When the phyllo bakes it becomes crispy, but since it contains somewhat less water, does not expand to the same degree as puff pastry. Puff pastry also differs from Austrian strudel dough, or Strudelteig, which more closely resembles phyllo.

Uses

 * Beef Wellington
 * Cheese straws
 * Croline
 * Croissants
 * Galette des rois
 * Jambons
 * Miguelitos
 * Mille-feuille
 * Palmier
 * Pastel de nata
 * Pithivier
 * Sausage rolls
 * Steak and kidney pie and other types of pie
 * Strudel
 * Tarte conversation
 * Tarte Tatin
 * Torpedo dessert
 * Turnovers

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Puff pastry


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Mince pie

A mince pie (also mincemeat pie in North America, and fruit mince pie in Australia and New Zealand) is a sweet pie of English origin filled with mincemeat, being a mixture of fruit, spices and suet. The pies are traditionally served during the Christmas season in much of the English-speaking world. Its ingredients are traceable to the 13th century, when returning European crusaders brought with them Middle Eastern recipes containing meats, fruits, and spices; these contained the Christian symbolism of representing the gifts delivered to Jesus by the Biblical Magi. Mince pies, at Christmas time, were traditionally shaped in an oblong shape, to resemble a manger and were often topped with a depiction of the Christ Child.

The early mince pie was known by several names, including "mutton pie", "shrid pie" and "Christmas pie". Typically, its ingredients were a mixture of minced meat, suet, a range of fruits, and spices, such as cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Served around Christmas, the savoury Christmas pie (as it became known) was associated with supposed Catholic "idolatry", and during the English Civil War was frowned on by the Puritan authorities. Nevertheless, the tradition of eating Christmas pie in December continued through to the Victorian era, although by then its recipe had become sweeter and its size markedly reduced from its once large oblong shape. Today, the mince pie, usually made without meat (but often including suet or other animal fat), remains a popular seasonal treat enjoyed by many across the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Britain
The ingredients for the modern mince pie can be traced to the return of European crusaders from the Holy Land. Middle Eastern methods of cooking, which sometimes combined meats, fruits and spices, were popular at the time. Pies were created from such mixtures of sweet and savoury foods; in Tudor England, shrid pies (as they were known then) were formed from shredded meat, suet and dried fruit. The addition of spices such as cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg was, according to the English antiquary John Timbs, "in token of the offerings of the Eastern Magi." Several authors, including Timbs, viewed the pie as being derived from an old Roman custom practised during Saturnalia, where Roman fathers in the Vatican were presented with sweetmeats. Early pies were much larger than those consumed today, and oblong shaped; the jurist John Selden presumed that "the coffin of our Christmas-Pies, in shape long, is in Imitation of the Cratch [Jesus's crib]", although writer T. F. Thistleton-Dyer thought Selden's explanation unlikely, as "in old English cookery books the crust of a pie is generally called 'the coffin'."

The modern mince pie's precursor was known by several names. The antiquary John Brand claimed that in Elizabethan and Jacobean-era England they were known as minched pies, but other names include mutton pie, and starting in the following century, Christmas pie. Gervase Markham's 1615 recipe recommends taking "a leg of mutton", and cutting "the best of the flesh from the bone", before adding mutton suet, pepper, salt, cloves, mace, currants, raisins, prunes, dates and orange peel. He also suggested that beef or veal might be used in place of mutton. In the north of England, goose was used in the pie's filling, but more generally beef tongue was also used; a North American filling recipe published in 1854 includes chopped neat's tongue, beef suet, bloom raisins, currants, mace, cloves, nutmeg, brown sugar, apples, lemons, brandy and orange peel. During the English Civil War, along with the censure of other Catholic customs, they were banned: "Nay, the poor rosemary and bays, and Christmas pie, is made an abomination." Puritans were opposed to the Christmas pie, on account of its connection with Catholicism. In his History of the Rebellion, Marchamont Needham wrote "All Plums the Prophets Sons defy, And Spice-broths are too hot; Treason's in a December-Pye, And Death within the Pot." Some considered them unfit to occupy the plate of a clergyman, causing Philo-Clericus to comment:

"The Christmas-pie is, in its own nature, a kind of consecrated cake, and a badge of distinction; and yet it is often forbidden, the Druid of the family. Strange that a sirloin of beef, whether boiled or roasted, when entire is exposed to the utmost depredeations and invasions; but if minced into small pieces, and tossed up with plumbs and sugar, it changes its property, and forsooth is meat for his master."

In his essay The Life of Samuel Butler, Samuel Johnson wrote of "an old Puritan, who was alive in my childhood ... would have none of his superstitious meats and drinks." Another essay, published in the December 1733 issue of The Gentleman's Magazine, explained the popularity of "Christmas Pye" as perhaps "owing to the Barrenness of the Season, and the Scarcity of Fruit and Milk, to make Tarts, Custards, and other Desserts", but also possibly bearing "a religious kind of Relation to the Festivity from which it takes its Name." The author also mentions the Quakers' objection to the treat, "who distinguish their Feasts by an heretical Sort of Pudding, known by their Names, and inveigh against Christmas Pye, as an Invention of the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, an Hodge-Podge of Superstition, Popery, the Devil and all his Works." Nevertheless, the Christmas pie remained a popular treat at Christmas, although smaller and sweeter, and lacking in post-Reformation England any sign of supposed Catholic idolatry. People began to prepare the fruit and spice filling months before it was required, storing it in jars, and as Britain entered the Victorian age, the addition of meat had, for many, become an afterthought (although the use of suet remains). Its taste then was broadly similar to that experienced today, although some 20th-century writers continued to advocate the inclusion of meat.

Although the modern recipe is no longer the same list of 13 ingredients once used (representative of Christ and his 12 Apostles according to author Margaret Baker), the mince pie remains a popular Christmas treat. Bakers Greggs reported sales of 7.5 million mince pies during Christmas 2011. The popular claim that the consumption of mince pies on Christmas Day is illegal is an urban myth.

New England
Mincemeat pie was brought to New England by English settlers in the 17th century. While it was originally a Christmas pie, as in Britain, the Puritans did not celebrate Christmas, causing the pie's associations in the region to shift toward the American holiday of Thanksgiving. The ingredients for New England mincemeat pie are similar to the British one, with a mixture of apples, raisins, spices, and minced beef serving as the filling. Later recipes sometimes omit the beef, though "None Such" (now owned by The J.M. Smucker Company), the major brand of condensed American mincemeat, still contains beef. New England mincemeat pies are usually full-sized pies, as opposed to the individual-sized pies now common in Britain.

title: Mince pie


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Shortcrust pastry

Shortcrust is a type of pastry often used for the base of a tart, quiche, pie, or (in the British English sense) flan. Shortcrust pastry can be used to make both sweet and savory pies such as apple pie, quiche, lemon meringue or chicken pie.

A sweetened version – using butter – is used in making spritz cookies.

Shortcrust pastry recipes usually call for twice as much flour as fat by weight. Fat (as lard, shortening, butter or traditional margarine) is rubbed into plain flour to create a loose mixture that is then bound using a small amount of ice water, rolled out, then shaped and placed to create the top or bottom of a pie. Often, equal amounts of butter and lard are used to make the pastry, ensuring that the combined weight of the two fat products is still half that of the flour. The butter is employed to give the pastry a rich flavor, while the lard ensures optimum texture.

Types

 *  Pâte à foncer is a French shortcrust pastry that includes egg. Egg and butter are worked together with a small quantity of sugar and salt before the flour is drawn into the mixture and cold water is added to bind it.
 * Pâte brisée is similar to pâte à foncer, but is lighter and more delicate due to an increased quantity of butter – up to three-fifths the quantity of flour. Very often it is made with no sugar, as a savoury crust for pies.
 *  Pâte sablée is made with more sugar, which sweetens the mix and impedes the gluten strands, creating a pastry that breaks up easily in the mouth. An alternative is a gluten-free pastry.
 *  Pâte sucrée has the same ingredients as pâte sablée, but the butter is creamed with the sugar and the eggs before the flour is folded in. This mixes the butter more evenly, which makes the dough puff much less, creating a more "snappy" and dry pastry, instead of the crumbly texture of the previous doughs.

Techniques
In preparing a shortcrust, the fat and flour are "cut" into each other, rather than blended, and the ingredients are kept cold. This ensures that the fat remains distinct in the crust, and when it heats during baking, steam is released, resulting in the pockets that make a flaky crust. Water is only added once the fat and flour are thoroughly combined. This ensures that the flour granules are adequately coated with fat and are less likely to develop gluten. This may be achieved with the use of a food processor, a specialized kitchen utensil called a pastry blender, or through various alternatives, like a pair of table knives held in one hand, or smearing the flour and fat together using the heel of the hand in a method known as fraisage.

In addition to over-warming the dough, overworking it is also a hazard. Overworking elongates the gluten strands, creating a product that is tough, rather than light and crumbly or flaky. Flour made from low protein soft wheat, like cake flour, is used for pastry making because it does not become overworked and tough as easily as bread flour.

Decorative techniques
A pie crust edge is often crimped to provide visual interest, and in the case of a two-crust pie in order to seal the top and bottom crusts together to prevent the filling from leaking. Crimping can be done by hand, pinching the two crusts together to create a ruffled edge, or with a tool.

A pie's top crust is often pierced to allow steam to escape and to provide visual interest. Piercing can be done with a knife or by using one of several techniques such as latticing. Latticing involves interweaving strips of pastry. It can also be achieved by cutting horizontal rows of slits into a whole pie crust and pulling gently to open the slits, a technique known as a "peekaboo" lattice.

title: Shortcrust pastry


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La Caletta

La Caletta is a small town, a harbour and a tourist destination in Sardinia, Italy. Caletta means a small bay or little harbour.

The town is located approximately 50 km south of Olbia, in the administrative territory of Siniscola (province of Nuoro), on the Tyrrhenian coast of the island.

An ancient village of fishermen, its small gulf has been transformed in the 1970s into a touristic harbour, and recently renewed and enlarged. The town (est. 1,000 inhabitants, that become more than 10,000 in Summer) is today deeply dependent on tourism and borders, at its northern side, with San Giovanni, the coastal fraction of Posada.

La Caletta is in front of a well known beach (appr. 10 km of pure white sand) that ends at the small town of Santa Lucia. Local population requires that La Caletta can have in its port a ferry line for the Continent (Italian mainland), and some experiments were practiced a few years ago, that confirmed the potential success of such an eventual initiative, but (also due to the particular administrative competence of an external organ and being part of the port under the authority of the bordering territory of Posada) administrative problems and local rivalries actually stop any further evolution in this sense.

title: La Caletta


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Japanese-American service in World War II

During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes on the West Coast because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage. As the war progressed, many of the young Nisei, Japanese immigrants' children who were born with American citizenship, volunteered or were drafted to serve in the United States military. Japanese Americans served in all the branches of the United States Armed Forces, including the United States Merchant Marine. An estimated 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II, of which 20,000 joined the Army. Approximately 800 were killed in action.

The 100th Battalion and the 442nd Infantry Regiment became the most decorated unit in U.S. military history. The related 522nd Field Artillery Battalion liberated one or more subcamps of the infamous Dachau concentration camp. Other Japanese-American units also included the 100th Infantry Battalion, the 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion, and the Military Intelligence Service.

Servicemen in the U.S. Army
The majority of Japanese Americans serving in the American Armed Forces during World War II enlisted in the army.

100th Infantry Battalion
The 100th Infantry Battalion was engaged in heavy action during the war taking part in multiple campaigns. The 100th was made up of Nisei who were originally members of the Hawaii National Guard. Sent to the mainland as the Hawaii Provisional Infantry Battalion on June 5, 1942, the 1,432 original members of the 100th were stationed first at Camp McCoy and later at Camp Shelby for combat training. Their exemplary military record, and the patriotic activities of the Varsity Victory Volunteers, paved the way for the creation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in January 1943. The Battalion shipped out in August 1943, landing in North Africa before fighting in Italy, eventually participating in the liberation of Rome.

442nd Regimental Combat Team

Meanwhile, an earlier decision to demote Nisei soldiers to 4-C class (enemy aliens ineligible for military service because of nationality) was reversed, and the Army in January 1943 issued a call for Japanese-American volunteers. Most of the initial recruits came from Hawaii, as those on the mainland were reluctant to volunteer while they and their families remained in camp. The 2,686 accepted Hawaiians (out of 10,000 volunteers) and about 1,000 mainlanders were sent to Camp Shelby. The U.S. Army regiment served in Europe during World War II. Japanese Americans already in training at the start of the war had been removed from active duty shortly after Pearl Harbor, and the Army stopped accepting new Nisei recruits in early 1942. However, community leaders in Hawaii as well as Japanese-American leaders like Mike Masaoka along with War Department officials like John J. McCloy soon began to push the Roosevelt administration to allow Nisei to serve in combat. A military board was convened in June 1942 to address the issue, but their final report opposed forming a Nisei unit, citing "the universal distrust in which they [Japanese Americans] are held." Despite resistance from military and War Relocation Authority leaders, the President eventually sided with the War Department, and on February 1, 1943, Roosevelt announced the creation of a segregated unit composed of Nisei soldiers and commanded by white officers. The 100th Infantry Battalion composed of men from Hawaii entered combat in Italy is September 1943 and suffered horrific casualties and became known as the Purple Heart Battalion. As a result, the 1st Battalion of the 442nd began sending replacement troops to join the 100th in early 1944. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions shipped out on May 1, 1944, joining the 100th in Italy in June 1944. These men arrived in Europe after the 100th Infantry Battalion had already established its reputation as a fighting unit, and in time, the 100th/442nd became, for its size and length of service, the most decorated unit in U.S. military history.

522nd Field Artillery Battalion
The Nisei 522nd Field Artillery Battalion was organized as part of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team; but towards the end of the war, the 522nd became a roving battalion, shifting to whatever command most needed the unit. The 522nd had the distinction of liberating survivors of the Dachau concentration camp system from the Nazis on April 29, 1945. Nisei scouts west of Munich near the small Bavarian town of Lager Lechfeld encountered some barracks encircled by barbed wire. Technician Fourth Grade Ichiro Imamura described it in his diary:
 * "I watched as one of the scouts used his carbine to shoot off the chain that held the prison gates shut .... They weren’t dead, as he had first thought. When the gates swung open, we got our first good look at the prisoners. Many of them were Jews. They were wearing striped prison suits and round caps. It was cold and the snow was two feet deep in some places. There were no German guards. The prisoners struggled to their feet .... They shuffled weakly out of the compound. They were like skeletons – all skin and bones ...."

Holocaust historians have clarified the Nisei 522nd liberated about 3,000 prisoners at Kaufering IV in Hurlach. Hurlach was one of 169 subordinate slave labor camps of Dachau. Dachau, like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Ravensbrück, was surrounded by hundreds of sub-camps. Only three days later, the survivors of a death march southwards from Dachau towards the Austrian border were found by troops of the 522nd just west of the village of Waakirchen, and cared for them until dedicated medical personnel took over.

Pierre Moulin in his recent book 'Dachau, Holocaust and US Samurais' writes that the first Nisei arrived at Dachau's gate not on April 29, the date of the liberation of the camp, but on April 28, 1945. Two jeeps of forward observers with 522nd Field Artillery Battalion Captain Charles Feibleman, Kelly Nakamura (Driver), George Oide, Kenzo Okubo, Mike Hara, arrived first at the gates of Dachau but were told to wait for back up since the SS were still in the towers.

Military Intelligence Service
Approximately 6,000 Japanese Americans served in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS). The first class received their training at the Presidio in San Francisco, but in June 1942 the MIS Language School was moved to Camp Savage, Minnesota, which offered larger facilities, removed the complications of training Japanese-American students in an area they were technically prohibited from entering, and had less anti-Japanese prejudice. In August 1944, the language school was moved again to Fort Snelling.

Most of the MIS Language School graduates were attached to the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) as linguists and in other non-combatant roles, interpreting captured enemy documents and interrogating prisoners of war. Graduates from the MISLS included Japanese-American women translators as well. (At the end of the war, MIS linguists had translated 18,000 enemy documents, created 16,000 propaganda leaflets and interrogated over 10,000 Japanese POWs.) However, MIS servicemen were present at every major battle against Japanese forces, and those who served in combat faced extremely dangerous and difficult conditions, sometimes coming under friendly fire from U.S. soldiers unable to distinguish them from the Japanese and often encountering former friends on the battlefield.

Japanese-American MIS linguists translated Japanese documents known as the "Z Plan", which contained Japan's counterattack strategy in the Central Pacific. This information led to Allied victories at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, in which the Japanese lost most of their aircraft carrier planes, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. An MIS radio operator intercepted a message describing Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's flight plans, which led to P-38 Lightning fighter planes shooting down his plane over the Solomon Islands.

When Merrill's Marauders were organized to conduct long range penetration special operations jungle warfare deep behind Japanese lines in the China-Burma-India Theater in January 1944, fourteen MIS linguists were assigned to the unit, including Army Rangers and Military Intelligence Hall of Fame inductee Roy Matsumoto.

The Nisei under Merrill's command proved themselves particularly intrepid and helpful, venturing into the enemy lines and translating audible commands to counterattacks, and shouting conflicting commands to the Japanese, throwing them into confusion. They soon became the best known Nisei in the war against Japan. The War Relocation Authority used their story to impress other Americans with Nisei valor and loyalty, even placing stories in local newspapers as the war waned in 1945 and the WRA prepared to release the Japanese-Americans back into their communities.

Over 5,000 Japanese Americans served in the occupation of Japan. Dozens of MIS graduates served as translators, interpreters, and investigators in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Thomas Sakamoto served as press escort during the occupation of Japan. He escorted American correspondents to Hiroshima, and the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Sakamoto was one of three Japanese Americans to be on board the USS Missouri when the Japanese formally surrendered. Arthur S. Komori served as personal interpreter for Brig. Gen. Elliot R. Thorpe. Kay Kitagawa served as personal interpreter of Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr. Kan Tagami served as personal interpreter-aide for General Douglas MacArthur. Journalist Don Caswell was accompanied by a Nisei interpreter to Fuchū Prison, where the Japanese government imprisoned communists Tokuda Kyuichi, Yoshio Shiga, and Shiro Mitamura.

Akune Family
The Akune family consisted of four brothers and four sisters. The brothers fought on opposing sides during World War II. Two of the brothers fought for the U.S. Another one served in the Japanese Imperial Army. Their parent, Ichiro, and Yukiye Akune immigrated to California, U.S.A., in 1918. They lost their mother and unborn brother in a birth complication on November 10, 1933. After their death the children traveled to Japan to live with their Father. The two oldest brother would eventually return to live in America, where they felt most at home. Once World War II broke out and the attack on Pearl Harbour commenced, contact between the separated family ceased.The two Akune brothers in the U.S. were among 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry imprisoned in relocation centers during the war. They were also among the 16,000 who eventually served the U.S. overseas in the war.

Servicemen in the Army Air Forces
Japanese Americans were generally forbidden to fight a combat role in the Pacific theatre ; although no such limitations were placed on Americans of German or Italian ancestry who fought against the Axis powers. Up to this point, the United States government has only been able to find records of five Japanese Americans who were members of the Army Air Forces during World War II, one of them being Kenje Ogata. There was at least one Nisei, U.S. Army Air Forces Technical Sergeant Ben Kuroki, who participated initially in 35 missions as a dorsal turret gunner over Europe, followed by 28 bombing missions over mainland Japan and other locations in the Pacific Theater.

Nisei Herbert Seijin Ginoza flew combat missions over Europe as a waist-tail gunner in the 483rd Bomb Group. He spent 3 months as a German prisoner-of-war after his B17 was shot down on a bombing mission near Vienna, Austria.

Women's Army Corps
Like their male counterparts, Nisei women were at first prohibited from serving in the U.S. military; this changed in November 1943, and 142 young women volunteered to join the WAC. Because their number was relatively small, the Nisei WACs were not restricted to a segregated corps, but instead were spread out and served alongside other ethnic groups. The idea of female auxiliary service was still new at this time (the Women's Army Corps was only nine months old when it opened its ranks to Nisei volunteers), and these women were most often assigned to clerical duties or other "women's work." Additionally, WACs were often portrayed in media and propaganda as highly sexualized and were encouraged by male supervisors to play into this role. The Nisei WACs faced another difficulty in that they were expected to translate Japanese military documents; even those who were fluent in Japanese struggled to understand the military language, and eventually some were sent to the Military Intelligence Language School for training.

After the war
The 442nd marched down Constitution Avenue to the Ellipse south of the White House on July 15, 1946, where President Truman honored the regiment with a Presidential Unit Citation saying, "You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice--and you have won." However, the unit's service and decorations still did not change the attitudes of the general population in much of the U.S. towards people of Japanese ancestry. Veterans came home to signs that read "No Japs Allowed" and "No Japs Wanted", the denial of service in shops and restaurants, and the vandalism of their homes and property.

Initially, many veterans' organizations such as the VFW and the American Legion refused to allow Nisei veterans into existing posts and some even removed Japanese-American soldiers from their honor rolls. White officers from the 442nd including Col Virgil R. Miller advocated on the behalf of the Nisei in Chicago to be allowed to form their own American Legion post 1183 in 1946, while Alva Fleming, a Navy veteran in Sacramento district leadership approved the charter for Nisei VFW Post 8985 in 1947. Fleming would go on to become the VFW State Commander for California and was instrumental in founding a total of 14 segregated Nisei VFW posts in the state. Veterans in the Pacific Northwest were unable to find any post willing to accept them, and eventually formed their own independent "Nisei Veterans Committee". Although VFW National leadership condemned the actions of local posts, their bylaws promoted autonomy in individual posts and were powerless to prevent the discrimination. Smaller organizations such as American Veterans Committee and Military Order of the Purple Heart invited Nisei into their ranks, however they did not offer the same facilities and benefits as the larger organizations.

Recognition
Some of the first memorials to the Nisei were created by 442nd and MIS veterans themselves, in the creation of the many Nisei American Legion, VFW, and independent memorial posts around the country, dedicated to their fallen brothers in arms.

The nation's highest award for combat valor, the Medal of Honor, was conferred upon one Nisei during the war, Sadao Munemori, after he sacrificed his life to save his fellow soldiers. Nineteen members of the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team received Distinguished Service Crosses during or immediately after their World War II service, but in the 1990s, after a study revealed that racial discrimination had caused them to be overlooked, their awards were upgraded to Medals of Honor. In addition, one soldier who had received the Silver Star had his award upgraded to the Medal Honor.

On October 5, 2010, Congress approved the granting of the Congressional Gold Medal to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion, as well as the 6,000 Japanese Americans who served in the Military Intelligence Service during the war. The Nisei Soldiers of World War II Congressional Gold Medal was collectively presented on November 2, 2011.

The Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II in Washington, D.C. is a National Park Service site to commemorate the experience of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and their parents who patriotically supported the United States despite unjust treatment during World War II.

The Go for Broke Monument in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California, commemorates the Japanese Americans who served in the United States Army during World War II.

The National Japanese American Veterans Memorial Court in Los Angeles lists the names of all the Japanese Americans killed in service to the country in World War II as well as in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

California has given four state highway segments honorary designations for Japanese American soldiers:
 * State Route 23 between U.S. Route 101 and State Route 118 is named the Military Intelligence Memorial Freeway.
 * State Route 99 between Fresno and Madera is named the 100th Infantry Battalion Memorial Highway;
 * State Route 99 between Salida and Manteca is named the 442nd Regimental Combat Team Memorial Highway;
 * The interchange between the I-105 and I-405 freeways in Los Angeles is labeled the Sadao S. Munemori Memorial Interchange.