A “Land You Could Not Escape yet Almost Didn’t Want to Leave”: Japanese American Identity in Manzanar Internment Camp Gardens

The Japanese American Internment during World War II drastically altered the lives of over 120,000 people. At the Manzanar Relocation Center just four hours from Los Angeles, 11,000 people were imprisoned from the spring of 1942 to the fall of 1945. Internees maintained self-expression through the gardens of Manzanar using traditional Japanese gardening techniques to transform the barren landscape into one of beauty and communal space. Today, the gardens are being restored based on photographic record, which serve as symbolic representations of the emotion invoked from these spaces. Through photographs, interviews, and evidence gathered on site, a story has been written about the creators of these gardens, their families, and the bond of community they forged in the California desert

Honorable Mention Contest Entry: A “Land You Could Not Escape yet Almost Didn’t Want to Leave:” Japanese American Identity in Manzanar Internment Camp Gardens

This is McKenzie Tavoda\u27s submission for the 2014-2015 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won honorable mention. She wrote about Japanese American identity in the Manzanar Internment Camp gardens. You can read the final essay that came out of her research here

Honorable Mention Research Paper: A “Land You Could Not Escape yet Almost Didn’t Want to Leave:” Japanese American Identity in Manzanar Internment Camp Gardens

While prior scholarship on Japanese American Internment during World War II has been prolific, few have researched the role the natural environment played within the camps and the impact it had on the internees. Some scholars have supposed that the environment was chiefly a negative influence, like Connie Chiang, but few have studied the resourceful accomplishments of the internees in designing and cultivating gardens that reflected both their ancestral identity and contemporary American sensibility. Scholars such as Kenneth Helphand argued that the gardens were strictly an act of defiance. Others like David Neiwert lay claim to the Japanese immigrant enclave losing its sense of community during internment. This paper will discuss how, in actuality, through the gardens, the internees were able to convert their space from a form of social discipline into one of personal power and communal restitution

A “Land You Could Not Escape yet Almost Didn’t Want to Leave”: Japanese American Identity in Manzanar Internment Camp Gardens

The Japanese American Internment during World War II drastically altered the lives of over 120,000 people. At the Manzanar Relocation Center just four hours from Los Angeles, 11,000 people were imprisoned from the spring of 1942 to the fall of 1945. Internees maintained self-expression through the gardens of Manzanar using traditional Japanese gardening techniques to transform the barren landscape into one of beauty and communal space. Today, the gardens are being restored based on photographic record, which serve as symbolic representations of the emotion invoked from these spaces. Through photographs, interviews, and evidence gathered on site, a story has been written about the creators of these gardens, their families, and the bond of community they forged in the California desert