For this month’s media contest, we kept things simple. The theme was “J”. Yes, just the letter “J”, as in June. As in Jay, Juniper, Joy, and Joshua Tree. And as in Japanese-American, as we see with our winning entry, submitted by AmeriCorps member, Jenna Horiuchi, who submitted photos related to the incarceration of Japanese-Americans from 1942-1945 during WWII, over 10,000 of whom were incarcerated at Manzanar.
Jenna provided background on the photo above: “Over 110,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were ordered by the United States government to leave their homes in 1942. This mass removal led to being incarcerated in remote, military-style camps that were kept under armed guard and surrounded by a boundary of barbed wire fencing. Deemed a ‘war relocation center’, Manzanar was one of these ten Japanese American confinement sites where the U.S. government detained both Japanese immigrants and Japanese American citizens until 1945. Manzanar National Historic Site preserves the stories of the over 10,000 people who passed through its entrance and lived in the barracks, offering the public the opportunity to learn about the historic events that took place.
“In this nighttime photo of the replica historic entrance sign to Manzanar, the Inyo Creek Fire burns in the background (approximately eight miles away) and fills the area with smoke–a reminder for us all to practice wildfire prevention, awareness, and safety this dry, hot season.”
Our thanks to Jenna for the superb photos and for helping keep the important stories underlying them alive. And thanks to the many others who submitted such great images. “J” provoked such an outpouring that we’ll be devoting several posts to these submissions, so keep watching this space for more galleries like the one below.
