Friday 20th April

The drive from Yucca Valley took us to another small town like Williams and Oatman, one which is trying to sell a particular history. Lone Pine was appealing to the history and legacy of Cowboys and Indians with its western movie feel which has been chosen for the location of many a cowboy film, one of the bars Jacobs’ Saloon had saloon style doors at the front and another had saloon style bathroom doors. Frequent images of horses could be seen throughout the town, including the full sized replica horse which could be seen atop one of the buildings, and the hotel we stayed in was almost a shrine to John Wayne because he had stayed there whilst filming in the surrounding area.
Lone Pine is just a short drive away from Manzanar, and the fact that I considered it to be nearby shows that I was becoming accustomed to distances I'd normally struggle with but Americans find normal. Visiting Manzanar internment camp made for a welcome change of pace and provided an opportunity to learn more about a part of America's history I get the impression most people would prefer not to remember and is therefore not advertised. Personally I found the experience to be a very sobering affair, despite the internment camp being drastically different from a concentration camp the atmosphere within the recreated buildings and blocks felt similar. What upset me the most was entering the children's section, seeing the poetry and toys and reading about how sparse their Christmas' would be, this really made me question how an entire country could be okay with such a place as Manzanar. To put anyone in a camp was wrong but to force children to live there is even worse because they cannot understand to the extent of adults what is going on. I saw how they had to make use of a 'toy library' because there were not enough for everyone to own several different toys, and for this to be happening in the land of opportunities and dreams made me feel sick.