Images of America Manzanar

Images of America- Manzanar By Jane Wehrey"East of the rugged Sierra Nevada in Californiaas Owens Valley lies Manzanar. Founded in 1910 as a fruit-growing colony it was named in Spanish for the fragrant apple orchards that once filled its spectacularly scenic landscape. Owens Valley Paiute lived there first followed by white homesteaders and ranchers. But with the onset of World War II came a new identity as the first of 10 arelocation centersa hastily built in 1942 to house 110 000 people of Japanese ancestry two-thirds of them American citizens removed from the West Coast. In the face of upheaval and loss Manzanaras 10 000 confined residents created parks gardens and a functioning wartime community within the campas barbed-wire-enclosed square mile of flimsy barracks. Today Manzanar National Historic Site commemorates this and all of Manzanaras unique communities."