To 7-year old Dick Mansfield, it was a simple enough question at the time: “Mommy, where did Chisko and Sumi go?” The blunt, straightforward answer: the Manzanar War Relocation Facility. The in-depth explanation of course, would be far more convoluted, and would take years of anger, probing, and examination to uncover. There was no hard evidence of an impending homegrown threat-- just a gripping fear that seized the American population in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attacks. WWII was a time when fear-mongering reared its ugly head in America—Pearl Harbor the first time the United States had been attacked on its very own soil. Shattered was the illusion of security and the belief that we were impervious.

 Mansfield is now 70, and a ranger at the Manzanar Historical Site, approximately 200 miles north from Los Angeles and buffered by the arid Death Valley and the jagged peaks of the Kings Canyon mountains. The first internment camp of 10 to open, the site held approximately 10,000 Japanese-Americans from 1942 to 1945. The barracks that housed them have long been torn down, but the site had two reconstructed last year to serve as a remembrance of this dark period for civil rights in America. Crossing the creaking wood-paneled floors in the 2nd barrack, he intercepts visitor after visitor on the day of the 42^nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage.  

 Since 1969, hundreds of Japanese-Americans from faith groups and civil rights advocacy groups like the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) descend upon the site in droves of tour busses, once a year to pay tribute to those whose lives were suddenly upended by F.D.R.’s executive order authorizing the Secretary of War to detain those with “foreign enemy ancestry” in “war relocation facilities.” But it is not just Japanese-Americans which groups like the JACL are reaching out to—it’s also Arab-Americans, who are growing up in a country, that at times seems to be at war with their culture. Since 9/11, JACL has partnered with the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to participate in the journey each year.

 Many of the former detainees that visit nowadays are the ones who have no recollection of their stay in the camps—they were just infants at the time. Hideko S. was merely 41 days old when her family was ordered to pack up and get on a train to the Santa Anita racetrack, which served as a temporary “assembly center”. “My mother,” she chuckles while shaking her head, “was going crazy! She really thought I wouldn’t make it.” Ironically, she lives nowadays right in Arcadia with her husband Akira, who was born in Manzanar. Inside the former high school auditorium that currently serves as the site’s museum, he points out his name, alongside his family of 5, on a massive scroll that lists all 10,000 something of the camp’s former detainees. “There’s my father,” pointing to the last name on the bottom of one of the columns. “And there’s the rest of us,” swinging his finger all the way up to the top of the next column, as we crane our necks to see. “There I am—I was the youngest, so I’m the last one listed.” If it was one thing that was apparent in the photographs of the residential barracks, it was the struggle for normalcy that families tried to achieve, despite the lack of privacy. Flimsy white curtain that didn’t even reaching the ceilings served as the only form of separation between families, inflicting even more humiliation on a dignified group of people whose culture especially valued decorum.

Passing from exhibit to exhibit, I began to see just how strong of a parallel Pearl Harbor had to the 9/11 attacks. Just as Japanese-Americans were instantly looked upon with suspicion, Arab-Americans became the new “enemy aliens”. Though fear is a strong, highly effective emotion, ethnicity should not be trumping nationality in a time when a nation needs unity. Unlike World War II however, the war on terrorism is not a conventional war, and many lines are blurred in a nebulous territory. This is precisely why we need the counterweight of reason from civil rights advocacy groups like ACLU, CAIR, and JACL —to preach level-headedness in a time of uncertainty. They are the antidote to fear. It gives me great reassurance to know that the collaborative effort between JACL and CAIR are working to prevent other egregious violations of civil rights and preserving civil liberties.

 Public figures making inflammatory comments now have to respond to groups like these, or face a PR disaster in this now viral world. Take the recent anti-Islamic protests staged by Congressmen Gary Miller and Ed Royce in Santa Ana, CA for instance. 50 years ago, this gathering would have came and gone, under-reported and unheard of by the rest of America. Nowadays, the video was immediately put on blast for the world to see. Free speech is free speech; we can’t stop speech that doesn’t agree with us—but it works both ways. People have every right to preach hate and lies, but they can now expect that people will preach reason and tolerance right back at them.

 The pilgrimage doesn’t end at the memorial, however. The Manzanar committee also looks towards the future. Recognizing that former detainees are aging, the committee made a push this year to focus on the youth, handing them the leadership role for Manzanar at Dusk, the group discussion portion at the end of the day. Activist youth in the 60’s after all, were the ones largely responsible for bringing back attention to this dark period. It was the younger generation’s desire to seek truth and reconciliation for an older generation who tended to be reserved about airing out their grievances. 10 miles from the Manzanar site, in the auditorium of Lone Pine High School, young college-age students gathered to reflect on their experience in front of the audience, buoyed by the cheers from their discussion groups each time. Indeed, it was an appropriate closing lesson of the day—that to make the pilgrimage to the past was important—but that the direction to the future was just as necessary.