In the Field: Photo Blog by Richard Wong

Photography field reports by Richard Wong. Richard’s work has been published in magazines, books, advertising, and offers fine art prints of his work. Images may be licensed as rights-managed stock photos by contacting Richard directly at Richard@rwongphoto.com or (626) 422-6151. California stock photography, fine art prints, photo blog: www.rwongphoto.com

Farewell to Manzanar

Posted on | November 4, 2008 | 4 Comments

Distraught Asian Man at Manzanar National Historic Site Memorial, Independence, California Distraught Asian Man at Manzanar National Historic Site Memorial, Independence, California

Hopefully most people in this country are aware of what happened at Manzanar but if you don’t already know, it was the infamous internment camp where Japanese-Americans were shipped off to during World War II. Though I am not Japanese, I feel for the people who went through this because I too know how it feels to be discriminated against.

Since there was no one else around to “model” for me, I had to photograph myself. The picture wouldn’t pass the journalism sniff test by any means but for the purposes of visual illustration you can’t tell that the “model” isn’t Japanese. :-)

In all seriousness, I felt very humbled to photograph the Manzanar cemetery monument.

See more of my Eastern Sierra pictures.

Category: California, Eastern Sierra, Manzanar NHS, historical sites
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Comments

4 Responses to “Farewell to Manzanar”

  1. Sherri Meyer
    November 6th, 2008 @ 5:29 am

    This is a great photo illustration Richard!

    When we have traveled down 395, we have never had the time to stop here. Maybe the next time we are down that way, we will make it a priority to check it out.

  2. Richard Wong
    November 6th, 2008 @ 2:50 pm

    You should definitely check it out Sherri. It is one of the more interesting places in the Eastern SIerra.

  3. Ann Torrence
    November 14th, 2008 @ 5:28 pm

    Sadly, there were nine other camps in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Recently I’ve been reading about Topaz, the Utah camp. Some internees from Topaz were hired to harvest crops in northern Utah, mostly sugar beets, living out of migrant worker camps. The landowners fought to keep voluntary evacuees from buying land, and at the same time depended on the mandatory evacuees for stoop labor. A sad and hopefully singular episode in American history.

  4. Richard Wong
    November 14th, 2008 @ 9:31 pm

    Thanks for sharing the history Ann. I’m embarassed to admit that I wasn’t aware of the other internment camps. I’ll definitely look those up when I get a chance.

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