Missed class, make up:LACMA and The Getty

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USCHINAforum: (Make-up Assignment)
A Trip to Manzanar
Owens Valley CA (north of Lone Pine, off Hwy 395)
When I visited Manzanar in April a few years ago, I was actually surprised at its beautiful locale to the east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Its dry, high-desert ruggedness is crested by snow-covered mountains of the Sierra Nevada to the west. Yet, here temperatures can soar to a scorching 100 degrees in the summer and freezing in winters with occasional snow and driving sleet.
In 1942, post-Pearl Harbor attack by the empire of Japan, over 100,000Japanese Americans were moved into an internment camp which was established here by an Presidential Executive order. Japanese Americans were bussed over and whole families were assigned to military style barracks which had chinks in them so the dust- ridden hot desert wind during summer and biting cold of winter sleet and snow blew into the barracks unabated. There are no barracks standing at the moment because it was bulldozed after the internees left in 1945 but some efforts are being made to built replica of the barracks and a rebuilt guard watch-tower stands on the site. The location of the barracks are marked ().
The visitor center has exhibits of pictures and handicrafts from the internment years. The small museum also screens a documentary made out photos and shots taken in 16mm celluloid format from that time. It gives quite a vivid image of how life was in the camp as the internees tried to maintain the lifestyle they had before the forced internment. The most striking I found out was that they ran a school in the camp so that the students who had not been able to graduate would be able to complete their high school.
There are a lot of stories of individuals – how the guards would be standing around with bayonets on their rifles and how some of the youngsters would actually sneak out in the dark of the night to go fishing in a stream to the west of the encampment. An annual function is held at the site to pay homage to the residents who died there and were interned at the camp.
The site offers a rich source of materials to students on the topic of discrimination and civil liberties in the United States. Lot of ideas to make a lesson plan is available in the National Park Service website (www.nps.gov) but a visit to the location itself will facilitate in making the lesson more meaningful and likely to leave a lasting impression on the students.