War Crimes and Misdemeanors


On our way home from Mammoth Lakes I stopped for a bathroom break at Manzanara, a national historic site. It's a beautiful rural setting at the base of Mt Whitney and the name is nice too, Spanish for apple orchard. But, beautiful location or not, I was going to get in and out of this place that was a War Relocation Camp for Americans of Japanese decent during WWII.

Maybe other people have the same notion of a speedy exit, because in the bathroom there was a huge, attention grabbing photo of a row of toilets. It was the latrine at the camp with personal accounts written on the photo describing the humiliation of having to take a dump with everyone watching. Suddenly, without my consent a rush of emotions flooded me and I felt the anger, resentment and pain of 10,000 residents of the camp who had lived there 60+ years ago. I couldn't just leave now, I had to at least visit the museum and acknowledge this war crime that my nation committed.

Just past the gift shop there's another attention grabbing photo of a store front with the sign, "I am American". It reminded me of the article I had once been asked to read in a diversity class I had taken at my first job, "Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh. It opened my eyes about privileges I enjoy as a white woman with blond hair. One privilege is that I am always considered an American.

I'd love to think that Manzanara is in the past but it isn't. A friend of mine who was born in Korea but has lived in NY most of her life told me that (white) people not only think she's not American but they think she's Chinese. Just the other day she was at a restaurant in Manhattan, and as she was leaving she overheard a (white American) guy say to his friends, "I wonder what they are?" referring to my friend and her companions. So, one of the guys turned to her and said, "ni hao". She glared at him and walked away. I asked her why she didn't ask him, "Why the hell are you saying hello to me in Chinese?" She didn't know, I think she was afraid of tearing the guy's head off.