Manzanar
We’re home.
The plan was to stay in Mammoth until Wednesday, skiing tomorrow, April 22nd, my birthday. Alas, our plans were foiled.
Oh, the mountain is open, it’s just that they’ve hit a skein of unseasonably cold weather. So, what was slush on Saturday, before we hit the slopes, has been rock solid ice since.
We were able to find some soft snow on the Juniper Springs side of the mountain on Sunday, which faces east and has a lower altitude, but coming down from McCoy Station on Sunday was akin to skiing on a washboard. And I’ve never had an urge to play in a jug band.
My spirits sank when this morning’s ski report said it was 22 degrees at the base lodge and 9 on top, with 48 MPH winds. The day before was the windiest I’d ever skied through. And, it’s got to be close to forty degrees for the snow to soften up. And, after the pond-skimming finale at Canyon Lodge yesterday afternoon, they closed that side of the mountain for the season. So, we were left with no east-facing slopes. I asked a couple what the conditions were like around 9:30, they said not to buy a ticket, it was absolutely horrible. And, after shopping in town, a plethora of skiers testified to the same effect. Usually, two runs and out. The snow was rock hard, the wind profuse and scree was being blown onto the snow, which was wreaking havoc with their boards. With a strong chance of snow in the future, not enough to make a difference, but insuring cold temps, and more 50 MPH winds forecasted, we bailed. It was just too painful to stay. We hit it completely wrong. It’s supposed to be sixty degrees on Saturday, but before that…there will be no above-freezing temps on the mountain.
So we loaded up the car and drove downhill.
And downhill it is. Mammoth Mountain is at the peak of the Sierras. Looking down from the summit can induce vertigo, it’s 8,000 vertical feet to the valley below. Having no schedule to adhere to, we took a detour to Convict Lake, where Felice had scheduled my birthday dinner for tomorrow evening. Positively staggering. The mountains come down like Alps to a lake with waves like those on an ocean.
Back on the highway, we sauntered down to Bishop. Where we made a stop at Erick Schat’s Bakkery, for some gelato. And then some chocolate chip cookies. Hell, it’s my birthday tomorrow, and I was hurting, our plans having been blown.
On the road again, we were caught between towering peaks and the desert, trying to see through the bugs embedded on the windshield. And when we got to Manzanar, I told Felice I wanted to stop.
It was almost five. We had hundreds of miles to go. But I’d driven by this Japanese internment camp so many times without stopping. This time would be different.
There’s not much there. You notice a guard tower and a structure that looks like an airplane hangar. You get the feeling they removed all the evidence, so we wouldn’t be confronted with a low point in America’s history.
But turning off the highway onto a dirt road, we passed a guard shack and then started driving past markers…delineating where all the buildings had stood, starting back in 1942, when Japanese Americans, some even citizens, were herded onto this godforsaken landscape.
We were stunned how large the camp was. But what shocked us wasn’t the cracked concrete, the remnants of buildings that once stood, but the cemetery. Out here in the desert, people had given their lives for..?
Completing the loop, we stopped back at the airplane hangar, which turned out to be a school/gymnasium, built by the "prisoners". After the war it had been a location for Lone Pine functions, but when our country finally faced its past, decades later, they turned it into a museum. Of what once was.
There was no one there. Only two rangers and us. It was like stumbling on a museum in the future. After all the humans had perished. It was like we were visiting from another planet, another era, another century, which it was.
The displays were akin to those in all war museums. Recounting history, ill-formed decisions which led to human pain. But with no one else in attendance, the rangers had not started the movie. They could show it to us. The museum was open for another half hour. It was either exhibits or film.
We chose film.
Funny how everything’s more serious when the lights are out. That’s the power of movies, they can take you away. To another time and place. When the Emperor of Japan allowed his subjects to emigrate. Which many did. In the late nineteenth century, they came to America and started restaurants, businesses, families…they built lives. Until the U.S. government took it all away.
Parents sold possessions for pennies on the dollar. One mother smashed all her dishes, rather than give them away. And with tears in their eyes, they were taken to the California desert, blistering hot in the summer and bone-chilling cold in the winter. With a wind… One of the prisoners testified, the wind never stopped blowing.
They were told it was for their protection. But then why did the soldiers have bayonets at the end of their rifles? Why was there barbed wire? Why, when a protest about the indignities finally arose, did the guards shoot and kill?
Not only was there depression, but dissension. Everybody didn’t get along. Unrest fomented in the camp.
Ultimately you could leave if you had someone to sponsor you, if you could prove that you would not be a burden on your new community. After pledging fealty to a country that mistreated you. And if you didn’t??? If you didn’t renounce the Japanese Emperor? You were shipped to another camp in Oregon. Many were ultimately deported back to the old country.
Kids pledged allegiance to the flag… But there was no flag in the camp school. They played sports against local clubs, but they were always the home team.
Finally, with the war over, the prisoners were given a ticket wherever they desired and the princely sum of $25. If this is the American dream, I want no part of it.
We may live in the greatest country in the world…but that does not mean our history is not littered with indignities, injustices. Hell, did you read the "New York Times" about the Pentagon disinformation campaign? Utilizing retired military men?
Who is running our country? And for what purposes? And if you just scare people enough, what will they do? Whose lives will they sacrifice in order to feel safe themselves?
When the lights came up in the theatre, we were ushered to the lobby, it was time for the museum to close. But before we left, I detoured to the bathroom. On the wall of the men’s room I was confronted with a display. Of a latrine at the camp. With all the toilets in a row, no dividers in between. I can’t imagine being able to do my business under those conditions.
And business is exactly what those entombed in Manzanar couldn’t do. How many lives were ruined for an unjust, ridiculous cause. No Japanese American was ever convicted of undermining the American cause, of aiding the enemy.
Unless you’re a skier, unless you’re going to Mammoth Mountain, chances are you’re never going to be on Route 395 passing Manzanar. It’s completely out of the way. Hundreds of miles from Los Angeles and Reno, on the other side of the Sierras from Yosemite. But if you find yourself on that highway, take that turn, open that can of worms. Learn about man’s inhumanity to man. Only by studying history, by never forgetting, do we have a chance of preventing a tragedy like this in the future.
