Maureen at Manzanar

by Maureen

Yesterday we went to Manzanar near Lone Pine and visited the museum. I enjoyed the memorial they built to honor the people that passed away in Manzanar and the people who succeeded in leaving those camps alive, and also the museum, inside the rebuilt auditorium but not so much outside apart from the memorial.

One reason I didn’t like going to Manzanar is because they tore everything down, and rebuilt the watch tower, the auditorium, and one of the mess halls. I don’t think they should have torn down all of those barracks and the rest of those buildings. How do you think the people who were put in those horrible camps feel when they come back and nothing is left for them to prove that there even was a camp? I bet they feel pretty bad that all their memories have been destroyed, as a child or an adult.

What I did like about Manzanar was inside the museum, they had people’s belongings from Manzanar, with a tag on it that said their name. They also had a big long list of the 110,000 Japanese people who were sent to the camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They also had a short movie on what happened in Manzanar in the movie theater. Another thing I think was a great way to honor the Japanese people who had to suffer in those concentration camps is how they created a memorial. Lots of people all around come and set hundreds of paper cranes in front of the memorial to pay their respects towards the people who died in those camps and for the people who survived.

This is how I felt about the day we spent in Manzanar yesterday with our school.