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Grace Maruki, 80, prays Saturday before lighting incense during the Interfaith Memorial Service at the Manzanar National Historic Site. Maruki's nephew, Michael Kakuuchi, 52, looks on from behind. Buddhist priests hold prayer beads as part of the Interfaith Memorial Service during the 33rd annual Manzanar Pilgrimage at the Manzanar National Historic Site. A group that traveled on foot for 250 miles from Los Angeles to the Manzanar National Historic Site embraces Friday in front of the memorial obelisk, which reads "Soul Consoling Tower." Photos by Amy Beth Bennett.

Monday, April 29, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Struggling to Understand

Former detainees, family members return to Manzanar camp

MANZANAR NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, Calif. -- As a teen-ager, Michael Kakuuchi heard stories about Manzanar from his mother.

Las Vegan Rosie Kakuuchi told of a concentration camp in the middle of a wind-swept desert, where for four years her life was confined to one square mile behind barbed wire and wooden fences.

The story starts 60 years ago, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The mandate to evacuate all Japanese people from the West Coast came shortly after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

More than 120,000 people of Japanese descent were relocated to 10 camps in remote areas across the country. About 10,000 people were taken to the Manzanar Relocation Center in the heart of Owens Valley, just west of Death Valley National Park at the skirts of the snow-capped Sierra Mountains.

During World War II, Japanese immigrants were denied citizenship. Their children, even those born in this country, were forced into the camps with their parents. The families were forced to leave their homes and businesses and board trains with only as much as they could carry. At the end of the war, they were released from the camps to struggle for a living in the face of racial discrimination.

On Saturday, Michael Kakuuchi joined his 76-year-old mother and his aunt, 80-year-old Grace Maruki, on their pilgrimage back to the camp.

The journey began as he drove from his home in Huntington Beach, Calif., to Los Angeles, where he met the women and his father, 81-year-old Jack Kakuuchi. His father had joined the military during the war.

"I just wanted to connect with the history, to stand where they stood and try to understand," said Michael Kakuuchi, 52.

Maruki and Rosie Kakuuchi paced the grounds where they spent their teen years -- the warehouselike auditorium where high school graduations were held, the sandy patch of desert where their barracks once stood, and the communal cemetery, where a white obelisk marks the memory of their older sister and others who died at the camp. Their sister Ruby died at age 23 while giving birth to twins. The twin girls died the following day.

"I just hope nothing like this ever happens again," Maruki said.

Her hope was shared openly Saturday by about 900 people, many of whom walked, ran, drove or flew hundreds of miles to the camp. Many brought their children and grandchildren or came in groups from high schools and universities across the country.

The younger generations, including Michael Kakuuchi's, struggled to understand how their elders could have allowed the government to imprison them during the war. Many questioned the former internees about how they could let the government rob them of their civil rights, and why they didn't fight back.

Rosie Kakuuchi and several friends she knew from the camp, including 80-year-old Sue Embrey, who started the annual pilgrimage 33 years ago, welcomed the questions.

"It's especially relevant today for them to realize what can happen," Embrey said. "It basically is happening again, not to Japanese but to Arab-Americans since September 11. Our children need to understand that it's important to stand up and question the government when something isn't right."

Rosie Kakuuchi recalled how humiliating it was to arrive at the camp, where she was forced to use communal bathrooms that had rows of toilets without partitions and showers without stalls. Kakuuchi, who was 16 when she arrived at Manzanar with her family in 1942, said everyone had to eat in a mess hall and line up like prisoners whenever the government delivered supplies.

"We felt like criminals, but we hadn't done anything wrong," she said. "I think a lot of people thought, `Well, it's the government. They are doing this for our own good.' We didn't question it. It was a different time."

The pilgrimage ended with a ceremonial prayer for peace. A Shinto prayer was followed by a Christian blessing. The pilgrims streamed through the cemetery, placing carnations at the base of the obelisk as Buddhist priests chanted.

Bernadette Marquez, a 21-year-old immigrant from the Philippines, fought back tears during the ceremony.

"Our government is always portrayed as so concerned with freedom, but in reality they care more about national security than people's liberty," she said. "Immigrants of all cultures always try so hard to fit in, to assimilate, to be more American. It's hard to believe our government could do this."

Monica Embrey, 15, traveled from Chicago to be with her grandmother during the pilgrimage.

"She must've been so strong to cope with all this," she said of Sue Embrey. "I don't know if I could be as strong as she was, to stand there behind barbed wire while people looked at her with hatred for doing nothing, just being Japanese. But it happened and it's part of history. We have to learn about it so there are no more Manzanars."