There is something mystical about the way a place’s story can pass from the soil, through the feet, and into ones consciousness.  The ground doesn’t always have an opinion, but it does at Manzanar; and when it does, attention must be paid.

The land surrounding the camp is intensely beautiful.  In spite of that beauty, it imparts a near constant sense of sadness—or perhaps it is apology, for its unwitting complicity in the horrors that unfolded there.  The sheer distances, tricks of perspective, unforgiving geography, and unrelenting weather had to combine with the stunning visuals to create a constant and torturous dialogue between the allure of freedom, and the reality of imprisonment.

While much of Manzanar is not as it once was, enough is.  The barracks, the barbed wire, and the roads are only footnotes.  The mountains look over the desert floor, and back onto the camp, as the most inescapable reminder of what we did.  And what we will almost certainly do again.