Beginning in March 1942 and continuing until November of the same year, approximately 107,000 persons of Japanese ancestry were evacuated from the West Coast. They moved first to hastily prepared quarters in "assembly centers", such as race tracks and fairgrounds, then into equally hastily prepared "relocation centers" scattered from California to Arkansas.
Manzanar National Historic Site was established to protect and interpret the resources associated with the internment of Japanese Americans at one often War Relocation Centers during World War II. One of the many challenges facing the National Park Service (NPS) at Manzanar is determining how to tell the story of the internment. Opinions about the role of the NPS in managing and interpreting the site range from suggestions that the NPS needs to serve as the social conscience of the nation to cautions that the NPS not become a ““groveling sycophant”” to the Japanese American community. To address this issue, the park sought diverse forums to engage the public in the management of the site. This paper details how public engagement has affected a number of management decisions.
Book Review: Impounded People. Japanese-Americans in the Relocation Centers
