At the end of January I met up with one of my favorite partners-in-crime in Little Tokyo to take advantage of Free Museum Day and visit the Japanese American National Museum. Little Tokyo was beautiful and I didn’t get enough time to explore. (I’ll have to go back soon!)
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- Selfie!
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- Bunnie Reiss, 2016
Right now the Japanese American National Museum has a special display on temporary exhibition called Only the Oaks Remain: the Story of Tuna Canyon Detention Station. Have you ever heard of Tuna Canyon? Did you know there was a “detention station” in Los Angeles during WW2? I love learning history and I grew up in the area, but this was all new info to me… We can both go to TunaCanyon.org to learn more.
Large display boards list the names of over 2,000 people who “passed through” Tuna Canyon.
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- The beauty of this oak grove belies a tragic history. At the beginning of World War II, the U.S. Department of Justice turned Civilian Conservation Corps Camp 902 into the Tuna Canyon Detention Station by enclosing it with barbed wire and posting armed guards. From December 1941 to October 1943, Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants, Japanese taken from Peru, and others were imprisoned here in violation of their civil liberties. On June 25, 2013 the Los Angeles City Council designated this site as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. The oaks, as witnesses to history, compel us to learn from our nation’s mistakes and stand strong against prejudice, wartime hysteria, and injustice.
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- The Tuna Canyon Detention Station in Tujunga, CA as it appeared during WW2. Currently the driving range and overflow parking for the Verdugo Hills Golf Course occupy this land.
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- “The importance of Hirokazu’s work Is that he recognizes that the most important things Are sometimes the simplest. The space between the heartbeats And the suitcases that carries More than people’s belongings.” Wall of Suitcases and Trunks by Hirokazu Kosaka
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- “The importance of Hirokazu’s work Is that he recognizes that the most important things Are sometimes the simplest. The space between the heartbeats And the suitcases that carries More than people’s belongings.” Wall of Suitcases and Trunks by Hirokazu Kosaka
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- Heart Mountain barracks – an original structure saved and preserved from the concentration camp in Wyoming.
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- Heart Mountain barracks – an original structure saved and preserved from the concentration camp in Wyoming.
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- Heart Mountain barracks – an original structure saved and preserved from the concentration camp in Wyoming.
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- Heart Mountain barracks – an original structure saved and preserved from the concentration camp in Wyoming.
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- Heart Mountain barracks – an original structure saved and preserved from the concentration camp in Wyoming.
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- Heart Mountain barracks – an original structure saved and preserved from the concentration camp in Wyoming.
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- “Pauline” (doll, 1937) went to the concentration camp at Topaz with Nancy Moriguchi and her family. Nancy’s daughter’s also played with Pauline in the early 1970s, and they gave her a new dress.
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- Anti-Japanese propaganda poster created during WW2
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- Eisenhower style jacket worn by Private Jerry Jiro Iwana while serving in the 442nd RCT Co. E, with shoulder patches of the 442nd RCT on the left shoulder and the “Red Bull,” 34th Infantry Division on the right shoulder.
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- This American flag flew over the Justice Department internment camp at Crystal City.
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- Diorama of Manzanar Concentration Camp, 1986. In 1982 Lance Matsushita conceived of the idea for a model that would both bear witness and pay tribute to the experiences of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. On a pilgrimage to Manzanar concentration camp, Matsushita had noted that little physical evidence remained of the thousands of people, including his grandmother, who had been forced to carry out their lives behind barbed wire. Through building this scale diorama of Manzanar, Matsushita recovered and presented in immediate, physical terms the massive toll of the incarceration of Japanese Americans.
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- The poem visible behind the display is “My Youth is Buried at Rohwer” by Janice Mirikitani *** My youth is buried at Rohwer, Obachan’s ghost visits Amache gate Words are better than tears, So I spill them, I kill this, the silence. ***
The following facts were posted among the artifacts:
America’s Concentration Camps
When the last American Concentration Camp closed in 1946…
- 120,313 Japanese Americans had been incarcerated
- 4 were killed by U.S. Army soldiers
- 1,862 died while in camp
- 2,355 left camp for the Armed Forces
- 4,724 were deported to Japan
It is not possible to make an accurate calculation of the value of property and potential income lost by the inmates. Estimates range from millions to many billions of dollars.
When the government finally had to move out the last inmates, primarily the elderly and the destitute, they were given $25 and a train or bus ticket.
Most chose to return to the West Coast, where they often found situations even more difficult than life in the camp.
I am terrible at selfies.
Jennifer Kaplan 
Jenny, this is fabulous. You did an unbelievable job. You are quite the photographer and writer. Mazel Tov
Sent from Jan’s iPhone
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Aw shucks ❤
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How totally kool!!!! Wonderful!!!
Sent from my iPhone
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😘
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