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Roadside California
Dedicated to the bizarre, campy, weird, wacky, icky, creepy, ooky, spooky, and all…
Manzanar National Historic Site
Category: Public Services & Government Landmarks & Historical Buildings Landmarks & Historical Buildings [Edit]
Independence, CA 93526(760) 878-2194
28 reviews for Manzanar National Historic Site
Review Highlights
"...government feared that the Japanese-Americans on the West..."
(in 6 reviews)
"The interpretive center is very nicely done."
(in 4 reviews)
"...American history, that is a must stop when driving up 395."
(in 4 reviews)
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28 reviews in English
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Review from Pamela C.
12/4/2011
Sobering and surreal.
This is a MUST stop. The place is kind of eery but in a way that we all should experience. This site brings you back to a very dark time in the world. It is very sobering to see the levels of depravity and prejudice that have existed on US soil and to realize it was not really that long ago. Makes you really think about a lot of the things going on today. This isn't a political site so I'm not going to harp on what I think the underlying messages are but everyone should visit places like this if only to learn the facts of our history. Take what you will from it. Being more educated about anything is never a bad thing - no matter what your ideological leaning.
The next time you are going to or coming back from Mammoth, you should stop here. Really. You don't even need to get out of the car if you don't want to.
Pros: Convenient location off 395 highway - less than 5 minutes off highway. Free. Self-auto tour. Listen to historical info on your radio! Clean bathrooms. Very detailed information and pamplets.
Cons: Parking lot is a bit far from the main building/museum. Can be quite windy. Some of the buildings are just replicas and not the originals. -
Review from Míkéy L.
Los Angeles, CA
2/1/2012
I stopped here on the way back to LA from Mammoth. I always wondered why there was a guard tower along the 395 South. So one day my friends and I on the way back home from snowboarding went to check this place out. It turns out that Manzanar was one internment camp the US government used to forcibly imprison Japanese Americans during the war.
It's a stark reminder of how the white man likes to keep the colored man down. The Japanese Americans that were sent to many internment camps were hardworking people and they were forcibly removed from their mainland homes. They lost their businesses and property which were taken over by white people and once the war ended, they didn't get anything back.
It reminded me of how the white man took these great lands from the Native Americans. Or how the white man enslaved the black man to work on their plantations. Or how the white man took the Chinese to work on their railroads and implemented anti-miscegenation laws and the Chinese exclusion act. Or how the white man is implementing these crazy immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama against Hispanics and other immigrants. Or how the white man did not want a Mosque built near the World Trade Center because they didn't like non-Christians near the sacred site.
I will be very excited when the colored people of the world take control from the white man, like in the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Call me Caesar. -
Review from Shawn M.
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
10/11/2011
Had spent a couple days in the mines of the Inyos, and on the way out, had an hour to spare, we checked out this museum since I never had.
Great museum that is bigger than expected. A wealth of information. Only downside of the site is that other than just a couple buildings and structures, everything else is gone. Roads around the site have signs that say where buildings used to be. So, while rather bare throughout the grounds, this adds to the shock once you see the site model inside the museum and realize how massive it once was.
It is a 'sad' memorial, and makes you think about what society can do to a group of people in a kneejerk action. These still go on today and some types of people are treated unfairly due to these 'kneejerk' laws and actions...
I feel these places often really get into the 'blame the white man' mode... and this place does for a bit. I wish it had an exhibit at the end of the walkthrough that shows how people have come to understand their mistakes and misguided ways.
Overall this place is a well put together museum exhibiting the sad reality of the history in this area. Come here and take a look around for a bit. -
Review from Christine A.
Cerritos, CA
4/20/2011 9 photos
My recent trip to Manzanar was so surreal.
The internment camps have always been a thing of legend for me. One of my dad's long time best friends (R.I.P. Bob) was a nisei who came of age in a camp in Idaho. As a little kid, I always wondered why Bob kept to himself and never married, and my dad explained the camps to me.
I feel like I've always known what Manzanar was and, as mentioned, it was rather surreal walking on its grounds. Most of the buildings are no longer there. It's sort of eerie passing by the overgrown baseball fields and seeing bases and mounds still there.
Our visit was rather impromptu, stopping by because we were in the area. We came on a Saturday, about half an hour before dusk, and found ourselves the ONLY people there. It was so quiet and peaceful. Too quiet and peaceful, really.
The barracks and mess hall were closed up when we went through the auto tour (free!), although there were these creepy, haunting noises coming from the mess hall kitchen.
As we got out of the truck at the cemetery, my boyfriend's dad remarked on how disgusted he was to see trash on the ground, but then noticed it was origami. Indeed, strands of paper and foil cranes were strewn along the bushes, blown away from the monument and graves. We gathered them up and placed them with the others, wrapping the strings around the chains bordering the white monolith.
Our visit was short, but meaningful. I thoroughly recommend paying this landmark a visit (it's free and open from dawn to dusk).Listed in: Roadside California, Visitable History (California…
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Review from romeo s.
Kenmore, WA
8/1/2011
If your major is history. You need to come to this place. It's kinda surreal. This is where thousands of Japanese were held during World War II. The self drive auto tour sure beats walking between the exhibits.
The admission price is just right: FREE to enter.
The restrooms were impeccably clean. People 50 and older will understand the significance of this historical location.
I hope to bring my kids when they get into their teens. -
Review from michael t.
Santa Monica, CA
4/24/2011
This place is good and creepy all at the same time. It's good that we remember what supposedly well intentioned people did to US Japenees citizens during world war two. They have lots of stuff to tell you how they endured all of the hardships that were put upon them.
Now for those of you who don't know this one of the places the US government shipped people of Japenese ansestry to during world war two. Not because they had done anything; just because they were "Japs". Anyone who went lost everything and had to rebuild their lives after the war.
Yes there is lots of easy parking and what's left is interesting to see.
It's just more than a little creepy to think that it actually happend in this country. US citizens had everything taken away from them for no good reason what so ever. It's more than a little disconserting to think that it might happen again. Maybe to you? You never know. -
Review from David W.
3/17/2011
If you live in the US you should visit this place. It is a memory almost forgotten of what the US did to the Japanese. This is not a hard stop to make, now that they rebuilt the guard tower it's easy to spot. Everyone should make a point to stop here on the way to Mammoth and see this part of American history.
Also if you walk across the highway from the camp, you will go right across the old Manzinar airport and further ahead is the abandoned Reward mine, a very nice mine that is very unpopular and the buildings left are amazing to look at. -
Review from David A.
Newport Beach, CA
7/10/2011
I've driven by here with others many times and never stopped, but always wanted to. On the way back from Mammoth on the 4th of July, I found myself alone with no reason not to stop. So, I did....
Upon entering the parking lot, I felt a deep sadness that this was allowed to happen. I had heard stories from my mom and my dad about their time during the depression and also during World War 2 (Dad served in Europe). Mom told about her time in college and the Japanese Americans who attended her college in Richmond Indiana (She is Quaker). As I walked around, I could feel choked up about what the internees had to suffer and to prove that they were "American". The realization that we, as Americans, are virtually (no, NOT virtually) all immigrants and that is what America is all about really hit home. I also thought about an old girlfriend whose father was sent to the camps when he was a little boy and rose above it all. The stories of the individuals who persevered was inspiring, but the untold stories of those who were broken and had everything taken from hung over the whole experience.
Spend some time touring the main exhibit in the recreation center (restored to accommodate the visitor center) and take time to drive and visit the barracks to get a feel for the camp. It was a harsh environment that also had a sense of community with schools, churches, temples, etc.. Many of those who were here relocated to places back East, but I believe many are still in the area or ended up back in LA after the war. Some came back and were fortunate to have people who looked over their properties and some were not.
I hope it never happens again.
Worth a stop. And worthy of spending some time to sit and think. -
Review from Eric B.
4/9/2010
Manzanar is a must stop if you're within a hundred miles (or so) of this place. My stepdaughter and I stopped here a while back on the way from Death Valley, the picture book by Ansel Adams is usually close at hand, and the image of the cemetery monument still sticks in my head. We also know Japanese families who were forced to live in this political concentration camp during WWII because of who they were. And Once you've been here, you won't and shouldn't forget this Constitutional travesty that our society allowed to happen.
Like my previous visit to Dachau, the interpretive center is nice, but not critical for the experience. Most of the structures are gone, but there's something about this barren, windswept, and scenic air that helps you still hear, smell, and feel what happened here. We enjoyed quietly walking around, breathing their air, and imagining what was...... -
Review from Madeline G.
Long Beach, CA
8/5/2011
As a United States history nerd, I have wanted to stop by here so many times on our drives up the 395, but my man always said, "He didn't feel like it". This time he said, "Yes". It is a very interesting place with an awesome video and museum. Give about an hour and a half to do it justice or stay for as long as you want. Stop by when you are driving by. It is worth it.
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Review from Rinky N.
East Bay
2/2/2008 23 photos
I dedicate my 400th review to my parents who spent three and a half LONG years in Manzanar. They were among the first to arrive and the last to leave, My brother was born in October 1945. The camps closed in November 1945.
My parents were married on August 31, 1941. We actually have a 16mm film of their wedding. Their twenty-something faces were filled with love and hope. My father had his own trucking business. The future looked rosy, bright and wonderful.
Less than 3 months later came the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The U.S. declared war against Japan. The government feared that the Japanese-Americans on the West coast were loyal to Japan and would easily be swayed to be spies or saboteurs. Over two-thirds were citizens by birth. The laws at that time prohibited their parents, the Isei, from becoming citizens even though they had lived in the US for decades.
On February 19th, 1942 , Executive Order 9066 was signed calling for the mass evacuation of all Japanese-Americans from the West Coast. With a just a few weeks notice, families had to "dispose" of their houses and furnishings, businesses, pets, etc. and pack their belongings in ONE suitcase. Many people had to sell their homes, belongings and businesses for a fraction of their actual value. Some folks, like my parents were fortunate to have friends and church congregations that offered to store their belongings.
Nearly 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were sent to 10 isolated relocation centers in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming.
Please see my photos.
This was our first visit to Manzanar. It is not an easy place to get to.
It is a long drive from LA and an even longer drive from the Bay Area.
When we arrived at Manzanar the weather was perfect-blue skies, no wind, beautiful snowcapped mountains. It would be easy to forget how harsh the weather most of the year--either dusty blazing hot (90's +) in the summer; and cold temps often with snow in the winter.
The VISITORS CENTER is housed in the former Manzanar High School Auditorium (built by the Internees in 1944). The films and exhibits will provide you with invaluable information and help put your heads and hearts back to those days when 10.000 people lived here.
You can choose a family tag (about 10 families to choose from) and find out what happened to them.
Their is an INTERNEE WALL with the names of all 10,000 internees illuminated on several tall panels. I found the names of my relatives (Their names were conveniently on the bottom rows).
There is a wonderful group of park rangers who will answer your questions and help you find out where your families lived.
The gift store features books; vintage toys, music CD's and DVD's., teeshirts, artwork, posters and many other items.
The Visitors Center gives you a driving map of Manzanar. There is not much to see, only a foundation here or there and remnants of Victory gardens and Japanese gardens with concrete river and waterfall bed. There are markers that indicate where buildings once stood--churches Buddhist temples, an orphanage, meeting rooms, warehouses, schools, post office, camp newspaper, the cemetery etc. Two of the original EIGHT guard towers remain. The rifles were pointed into the camps at the internees.
There were 36 BLOCKS of building clusters. Each block consisted of barracks with "apartments," a sad euphemism for 20 X 25 foot rooms that housed EIGHT people; a mess hall, a laundry room (ie sinks not washers & dryers); recreation room, common latrines and showers with no partitions or doors,
We stood where my parents' apartment once stood. It was a sacred moment. We looked around to see the views of the Sierras my parents had.
When my parents talked about Manzanar when I was a kid, they referred to it as "camp." I always thought it was like an extended summer camp. My dad played saxophone in a band, showed cartoons and movies in the rec hall; they loved to order stuff from Sears Roebuck; they hung out with friends.
I JUST CAN'T IMAGINE:
Giving up our home, belongings, our car, our cats and most of all our freedom
Packing my belongings into ONE suitcase--hell I need more than one suitcase for a weekend trip!
The three of us living in a 20 X 25 foot room with 5 other relatives!
Having communal latrines and showers with no partitions!
Being incarcerated for an indefinite time.
Wondering where you would live when you were able to leave.
It is impossible to convey with any sort of eloquence what a visit to Manzanar is really like. I am still trying to sort out my feelings. -
Review from Kim S.
San Pedro, CA
10/20/2007
No spectacular scenery, but this National Historic Site will make you cry.
It is hard to believe that the National Park Service under the G W Bush regime would be paying for this site, which while talking about Japanese in 1942 is so applicable to Gitmo today. If you care about human rights and racism, this is your monument.
The cemetery is the highlight. Ansel Adams thought so too. One of the few places where you can stand where Adams did and see the view he shot, still unchanged.
The staff is great -- dig as deep as you can, and they can keep up with you. I happen to live on land that was taken from a Manzanar resident. They led me to where in Manzanar he lived (Block 9). Awesome.
This is not Yosemite, but it will stay with you longer. Visit. -
Review from mary f.
Long Beach, CA
9/17/2008
My family was not interned at Manzanar - my mum was born in Tule Lake.
This was the second internment camp site I've visited - Tule Lake was my first. Manzanar interested me because of how well preserved it is. The Interpretive Center is amazing. The workers were so knowledgeable and helpful.
I wish everyone could take a half hour out of their lives to see the 22 minute video.
I am so glad me and my mum had the opportunity to take a road trip out there to experience this. It's hard to put into words how much it meant to us to be able to see everything. The rock gardens. Where all the barracks and blocks were. The grave sites. -
Review from Ruth A.
Oakland, CA
8/22/2007 1 photo
A heartbreaker, but not to be missed.
This site is totally accessible by car: you can drive around an access road and see what's left of the camp. The little cemetery at the back is eloquent: the flowers and other tokens left there are a reminder that these were REAL people, folks from Los Angeles and elsewhere, most of them U.S. citizens, who were herded into a camp like animals or criminals and held there until the war was over.
Worth seeing, even with as little as remains. The visitor center is quite good, and you can see reconstructions in progress. Even with most of the buildings missing, the eerie isolation of the spot is quite an experience. -
Review from Foster K.
Pasadena, CA
4/7/2009
One of the best, if not THE best, interpretive centers I've visited. It provides a very complete history of an event which is amazing for having taken place in our country which values freedom so highly.
If anything displays how history repeats itself, it is Manzanar and all the other internment camps. I couldn't help thinking about our post-9/11 reaction while walking through here.
Worth the trip just to visit here. -
Review from Chanda I.
9/14/2010 1 photo
see a part of history and go here! i've had the privilege of going here a lot when coming back from fishing trips and it's amazing to see what they have done over the years. it's a spiritual and haunting experience for me to pay respects to the japanese who were incarcerated here during WWII.
the national park service have made it easy to do a driving tour through the site, where they have labeled where different things were (such as the garden and such). they now have an amazing museum (FREE) where you can learn more about the Japanese American Incarceration Experience.
FYI, every year around April they have a Manzanar Pilgrimage where former incarcerees, families and friends gather to visit the site.
FYI, there is also an awesome little fishing spot really close by if you go about 1 mile or less south of the site. -
Review from Matt M.
5/30/2011 1 Check-in Here
Nothing fun about experiencing this little piece of dark American history. However, as almost everyone else has written, a must-stop on any trip that takes you within driving distance of this place. Growing up in the midwest, this part of our history was not included in our studies. However, having a wife that is half-Japanese and hearing the stories of people who lived here and endured the limits of what any human being could stand, leaves one with a sense of numbness. Be sure to stay for the film and spend time in the museum. I also highly recommend the self-guided driving tour around remnants of the facility. When you stand there at one of the rock gardens, wind hitting you a hundred miles an hour, you realize they were prisoners. You are left with a saddened sense of "how could they have done this to any person - citizen or not?" Stop at this place, take friends, take children, and make sure these types of actions are never repeated.
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Review from Kevin B.
San Francisco, CA
1/22/2011 1 photo
A very sad but real part of our recent history as a nation. To stand on this bleak expanse of desert and try to understand what the interred were forced to endure is heart breaking.
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Review from Bucky K.
San Francisco, CA
4/5/2007
I'm gonna let you in on a dirty little secret that for a long time the government didn't want you to know about. During World War II, the government rounded up Japanese American citizens and placed them in concentration camps. They still refer to them as internment or relocation camps, because concentration camps has such a negative connotation to it. Manzanar is one such camp. Some of the residents at Manzanar were even pulled from Japantown in San Francisco.
Rightfully so, the government has admitted to their atrocities and the National Parks Service is preserving and restoring this particular camp. The last time I visited this site, there really wasn't a lot to do or see. Just a few plaques and the outlines of the old buildings. In fact, there wasn't even a Park Ranger on location. However, that has changed and they are now rebuilding some of the buildings and one of the towers where a soldier armed with a sub-machine gun kept an eye on the "residents." I would give it a few more years to visit to ensure that everything is completed because it is located in a pretty remote location in California. This isn't a feel good location if you are visiting your National Parks nor is it supposed to be. But it is part of our history. -
Review from Ethan H.
1/25/2008 1 photo
Crying is not a measure of absolute pain or discomfort: Children scrape their knees and cry; grown men break limbs and don't. Crying is, instead, a reflection of surprise or disappointment, of fear or a sense of hopelessness or loss. A thing that turns out to be as horrible as you always expected may make you feel flat or hollow; but it shouldn't make you cry. A thing that grows worse with further examination kidnaps you for emotional descent. Visiting Auschwitz was like seeing an alligator in the zoo. Visiting Manzanar was like finding a lizard in my bed. (The first is a scarier beast, the second, more personally disturbing.) Auschwitz was, to me, an emotional anti-climax, uncaused by things I always knew were there. Manzanar stuck in my throat.
When I lived in Germany, I worked as a tour-guide and made a living by leading people through concentration camps-turned-national monuments. No country, of course, is quite so good as Germany at recognizing its mistakes and correcting for them. (They have, after all, had a lot of practice...) But Manzanar National Historic Site is a lesson in *American* Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung. We are, as a people, not so completely contrite as the Germans. (Who is?) But at this monument to a dim chapter in our history, I think we do incredibly well.
Nestled in the Owens Valley, in the shadow of the Inyo Mountains and the snow-capped Sierras, the War Relocation Center at Manzanar, California was home to more than 11,000 people of Japanese ancestry interned during WWII. Sparked by Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and fueled by racism, unemployment and fear of the 'Yellow Peril', President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, authorizing the War Department to relocate, detain and/or intern anyone who, on account of national ancestry, might conceivably threaten US national security or the war effort. Though the order didn't specifically mention people of Japanese extraction, and though it might well have *also* applied to Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Romanians and Bulgarians, the military used the order to justify the establishment of 10 concentration camps (or "war relocation centers", the name itself is a matter of some controversy) and the evacuation (or "relocation") of almost 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from California, Oregon and Washington state. (Canada issued a similar order for the province of British Columbia.) A handful of these people were left in the camps when the war ended in 1945, though a number had been released in the years before to work or attend school in non-Pacific states or even to serve in the US army on the European front.
Life in the camps was hard -- made worse by cramped conditions, extreme weather, and the fact that many of these people had been forced to sell their property at desperation prices before being forcibly removed from their homes. (People were generally given notice of relocation on the order of days (not weeks or months) before they were forced to depart.) Of course for many, the most disquieting thing may have been the realization that they were being imprisoned by the United States, the place that many had called home for over a generation, the country of which most were citizens, and the government to which most owed and gave their primary allegiance.
Indeed, *this* is what I find to be the most disturbing thing about Manzanar, both as a relocation camp and as a national monument. In a certain way, most of the people imprisoned at camps like Manzanar were not *Japanese*-Americans at all, so much as they were Americans, plain and simple. I mean this in the same way that I'm annoyed by forms that ask people to identify as: "White/Caucasian; African-American; Hispanic-American; Asian-American; or Native American," as if a person's whiteness were enough to indicate his or her American-ness in a way that a person's black-ness, brown-ness, yellow-ness or red-ness was not. Even in its commemoration of the plight of those who were interned here, the Manzanar National Historic Site specifies that most of the internees were "Japanese Americans", as if the crime would be any different if the interned were Irish-Americans, Jewish-Americans, European-Americans, vegetarian-Americans or suburbanites. The fact that American citizens (or even just people) were imprisoned in violation of the Constitution is 'bad enough', irrespective the fact that most of these particular Americans happened to have had parents who came from a place called 'Japan'. The difference is subtle, of course. And I don't necessarily know of a solution. I guess I just wish there were a better way of driving home the gut-wrenching fact that most of the people imprisoned at Manzanar were no less American than most of the people reading this review. -
Review from Darren S.
11/25/2009 5 photos
On the day that I visited Manzanar, I was surprised to find that many of the other visitors there with me did not know that the internment of Japanese Americans happened before they walked through the interpretive center doors. I was more amazed to find that was the United States apologized for this almost fifty years later. If you find yourself in the area you must visit, watch the movie and tour the grounds. It is a truly touching place to experience.
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Review from Kosmonaut K.
4/7/2007
A very thought-provoking place that gives visitors a glimpse into one of the darker sides of American history.
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Review from Glaciala A.
Providence, RI
1/1/2010
A very nice visitor's center. If you're driving to Mammoth, stop by Manzanar. Not only is it a historic site, but it is a site that is very important to Japanese Americans--as there were many interned there during World War II. Manzanar is also the site of an annual pilgrimage, a large event in the spring. Whether you're Japanese American or not---this is an important site in US history...
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Review from Kelly R.
Fallbrook, CA
1/3/2010
My hubby and I went here and were very disappointed. The center is ok but the grounds are crazy - you drive around on old roads and see signs that say " a building used to be here" very weird exhibit. Will not visit again.
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Review from wil r.
Merit-Carson, CA
6/24/2009
This National Historic Site is a very touching place. I must admit that I came a way feeling a little haunted and saddened by the place. but even with that said It is worth the trip there for sure. The interpretive center is very nicely done. You will come away with a real understanding of the history of this place and the people that were forced to live here. AAAA++++
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Review from Tod B.
Fountain Valley, CA
8/21/2010
Wow. They've come a long ways since the 90's when all that was here was the little white memorial. I visited here today and was treated to a brand new museum with RAD decor, and very in depth exhibits. I was also treated to a speaker, who gave his account of camp and the way it really destroyed his family in the years following, very deep. Our nation needs to spend more money on preserving these sights. We need visual reminders of our past so we don't make the same mistakes in our future. They are really going above and beyond to create a fantastic representation of what Manzanar was like in the 40's. Our government gets an A+ for this one. I will most certainly be checking in here from year to year to check out the new things they put in. In the works is a rebuild of the bunks and offices on an entire block of the camp, which should give an honest representation of what it was like. Looks great, keep it up.
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Review from Terri B.
Orange County, CA
9/2/2010 4 photos
Having grown up in Bishop, I have passed Manzanar more times than I can count. On our way to Mammoth this trip we decide to stop since they have recently added a vistor's center and I'm thrilled that we did. We were fortunate enough to get in on a talk that was given by Prof. Don Hata, a Historian who was held in a camp as a child, while not a Manzanar he could vividly explain what life was like for Japanese Americans. I found him interesting and passionate about his life, as he explained his struggles. The visitor's center houses a small museum, full of history about the area. One of the most touching displays was the large piece of cloth hanging in the back with all the names projected of those who lived here not by choice. The exhibits include the history and story of Manzanar as well as replicas that depict living space for the families. Not only do they have the museum, there is a small store and theater where films about Manzanar are shown. Within the next year they will have two barrack built that one can walk through and see how the families lived. This is a small piece of American history, that is a must stop when driving up 395.
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Review from Barb B.
4/30/2009 4 photos
My son and I attended the 40th Manzanar Pilgrimage, our first pilgrimage to any internment site, and it was an amazing experience. My parents were not interned at this camp but at Gila and Heart Mountain. I have been to the Gila River camp site and it is not marked at all like Manzanar is. They have done a great job marking sites of the buildings---very haunting when you look at the well documented Ansel Adams photographs of Manzanar while there. It was sad to see the graves alone in the cemetery, all unmarked except for two. The site of them brought tears to my eyes to think of the families who had to leave their loved ones there at the camp. The marked grave of the baby, Jerry Ogata, was heartbreaking as well. The pilgrimage had young, old and in-between, Asian and non-Asians all coming together to remember, heal, and vow to never let this kind of injustice towards Americans ever happen again. Listening to the taiko drummers, speakers--some still getting choked up recalling their memories of their life in camp--, sermons of many faiths and ending with the joyous odori dancing is something I will never forget.
