Mending History : Northridge Boy Scout, Fellow Troop Members Help Restore Manzanar Internment Camp

MANZANAR, Calif. — When John Cox first visited the internment camp where about 10,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated during World War II, he was shocked--not by what he saw, but by what he didn’t see.

“There was nothing,” the 16-year-old Northridge Boy Scout said of his trip last year. “There was just these two guard shacks and a few walls still standing. There’s really nothing but a memorial plaque to tell you what really happened here.”

Scarred by time and indifference, the two stone guard shacks at what was once the entrance to the Manzanar Relocation Center, 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the Owens Valley, were still standing but were filled with debris and covered with graffiti. The doors and windows were long gone. The roof was in disrepair and the interior reeked of urine.

Though troubled that the camps represented a shameful chapter in American history, John was even more upset that this chapter was being allowed to literally turn to dust.

The decay drove him to action. In the first restoration project at the site since it was abandoned in 1945, about 20 Scouts led by John, along with several of their parents and National Park Service employees, spent the weekend repairing the guard shacks and cleaning the surrounding area.

By Sunday, the Scouts from Troop 99 in Northridge had repaired the roofs of both shacks, cleaned out the interiors and nailed plywood on the doors. They also put plastic sheets in the windows, allowing visitors to see inside while protecting the interiors from the elements and vandalism.

John was on a Scout camping trip when he first visited Manzanar, and he decided then that he wanted to renovate the two shacks and clean up the camp as a community service project to help himself qualify as an Eagle Scout.

“I couldn’t believe that this important piece of history was just rotting away,” he said as he stood inside one of the shacks. “If these guard booths fall, there will be nothing here. People will drive by and see nothing.

“We should remember this mistake, but how can we if there’s nothing here?”

Over the weekend, the Scouts broke into groups and walked through the site picking up debris and chopping brush that was threatening the remaining walls, patios and driveways. Several Scouts discovered cans and pottery from the 1940s.

Those items and a small cemetery in the rear of the site are all that remain of the camp that was closed in October, 1945, and demolished the same year. The only other building still standing is an auditorium used by Inyo County as a storage shed for road maintenance equipment.

The internment program began with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order 9066 in February, 1942. It was used to round up U. S. citizens of Japanese descent without evidence of their involvement in efforts to hamper the war effort. Manzanar, which means “apple orchard” in Spanish, opened in March, 1942, as the first of 10 internment camps where Japanese-Americans were detained.

The population quickly grew to 10,000. Most were American citizens from Southern California; many were forced to sell or lease their properties at substantial losses.

Amid rows of crowded tar-paper barracks, the internees at Manzanar planted fruit trees and vegetables and built rock gardens and 17 ornamental pools to make their time there more tolerable. The camp had its own schools, baseball teams and a newspaper.

Manzanar also had its own Boy Scout troop--a fact not lost on John and his colleagues.

“They were kids like us,” he said.

Many of the Scouts knew nothing about the internment before this weekend.

“I never heard of Manzanar or any of this stuff until I heard of John’s project,” said Ryan Rebong, 13. “I didn’t think this could happen in America.

“We were trying to stop the Nazis from putting Jews in concentration camps, but we put all the Japanese here in camps. It’s not quite the same but, you know, it’s kind of similar.”

It was not just a history lesson for the boys, who had some expert help in learning about construction and restoration.

Ted Barstad, 54, a custom home builder in the San Fernando Valley, accompanied his 15-year-old son, Josh, and helped with the roofing. Chris Thompson, a National Park Service carpenter, canceled plans to see his fiancee over the holiday weekend to help with the project.

The Manzanar renovation is strongly supported by Japanese-American groups, including one that organizes an annual pilgrimage to the site.

“It’s great to have this help,” said Sue Kunitomi Embrey, head of the Los Angeles-based Manzanar Committee. “We’ve needed this for so long.”

Embrey, 69, was unable to help the Scouts over the weekend, but John sought her advice in planning the renovation. Her group takes care of the cemetery, but does not have the resources to undertake any major restoration.

“It’s important for children to learn that some things happened in America that we are not so proud of,” Embrey said. “It’s important to examine these things.”