The Road to Manzanar: The Story of an American Internment Camp

I put together this documentary on the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California — one of ten internment camps the Army used to house Japanese-Americans without charge or trial after the bombing of Pearl Harbor during WWII. We happened to pass by Manzanar off the side of the road during a filming road trip back in 2020 prior to the lockdowns and when I saw the guard tower at the entrance to a national park, I had no idea what it was.

Despite having earned a master’s degree, I had never been taught about the history of Japanese-American internment in school, and that includes completing two university level American history classes (one of which specifically covered WWII supposedly in-depth). I wouldn’t learn about this dark chapter in American history until years later during my own history research. Why wasn’t this ever taught?

What follows is one of the saddest pieces I have ever made, but I think people need learn about this, so history doesn’t get to repeat these human rights violations on the next “minority” simply because of the majority’s hysteria and fear.

Watching now. Pretty wild to think I would have been hauled away living where I am right now in the 1940’s https://t.co/fve6DtDxvy

— Gonz (@FaceLikeTheSun) March 8, 2022