This morning we did laundry and shopping in Lone Pine.  M and B tried out the local skate park:

We drove north to Manzanar, one of the dozen or so detention camps built to imprison over 100,000 Japanese Americans for the duration of World War II.  You know, because they might spy for Japan or something.  Just in case.

This was the second detention camp we’ve visited.  We visited Heart Mountain in the summer of 2011.

The only thing more shocking than America violating its own constitution to detain its own citizens based solely on their ethnicity is the fact that most Americans today don’t even know this happened.

The visitor center listed the names of those detained here:

There were dozens of blocks, each containing 14 barracks, a men’s and women’s toilet building, and a mess hall.  Today two barracks and a mess hall in one block are the only remaining buildings at Manzanar:

The barracks were just tar paper over plywood.  Each barracks was divided into four rooms which housed up to eight people:

The prisoners at Manzanar built their own social hall which was converted into the visitor center:

Some blocks built community gardens, which no longer have water running through them:

The West side of the camp has a memorial obelisk at the inmate cemetery:

After the kids received their Junior Ranger badges, we continued North to Independence where we are parked just off of Onion Valley road just a bit out of town:

Onion Valley is the hardest cycling climb in California, but I’m still sore from Horseshoe Meadows on Monday, so I doubt I’ll attempt the climb tomorrow.  See the trip map for today’s drive.