Mount Whitney and Manzanar

Wherein Moominmama hikes in the John Muir Wilderness and joins a ceremony where Japanese Americans declare "Never Again is Now"...

Driving into the eastern Sierras is like arriving on a different planet from the sand and sagebrush below. At 10,000 to 11,000 feet, the air has a chill, there's snow on the mountaintops, and everything smells of ponderosa pine and moist earth. Even the bird calls are different.

After a week in the valley, the mountains were calling, and Moominmama drove up to hike in the John Muir Wilderness, choosing a three-mile trail up Mount Whitney to Lone Pine Lake. The days had been warm, but I wasn't sure how much snow I'd find on the trail. As it turned out, I got a good 2.5 miles before I had to put on microspikes to navigate the snow, which was firmly packed down.

What spectacular views! And fascinating plant life. This is manzanita, a bush with tiny teardrop flowers that will eventually turn into berries. It is related to a bush I'd seen in Alaska, known as kinnikinick, which produces bearberries. The flowers are so colorful and delicate for such challenging climates! Spring was on its way here, and everything felt fresh and new.

Excited by the success of my first foray into the mountains, I was tempted a few days later by a trail up Kearsarge Pass. That turned out to be vastly more challenging. On the day I hiked, the snow was soft and wet, leaving me to posthole up the snowy sections sinking up to my thigh.

On one snow-covered traverse, I lost my footing and slid downhill before catching my foot in weak spot on the snow pack. 

Trouble was, my foot got stuck in the hole I'd just punched, and I had to dig out heavy wet snow or risk forfeiting my boot!

Fortunately another hiker came along and kicked some steps into the snow so I could climb back to the trail once I got my foot free.  Ironically, I'd already decided to turn around and was retracing my steps when I slipped. 

Made it back safely and learned to be more cautious of spring conditions in these mountains! In total, I did only 2.6 miles, but my muscles are incredibly sore from plunging through snow and stepping back up! Helluva stairmaster.

Having cut my hike short, I drove back to Manzanar, a historic site where about 10,000 Japanese Americans had been interned after Pearl Harbor. I'd been to the site the week before to witness an annual ceremony and "pilgrimage" honoring those who'd been incarcerated there. This year, current events played a major role in the proceedings.

There were some musical performances, including Taiko drummers from UCLA, a keynote speech and the usual formalities. But almost everyone who spoke noted the uncomfortable parallels with what's happening today with immigrants and students imprisoned or deported without due process. 

Japanese Americans across the U.S. came as part of the pilgrimage, and those formerly incarcerated brought banners representing the camps where they'd stayed. I found it a very moving ceremony and a bit frightening to see how the worst of history can repeat itself, even when elderly survivors remain to tell their stories. This is hardly ancient history.

Part of the reason for Manzanar's historic site and for preserving the stories, an old watchtower and a few of the tar-paper and wood barracks is to remember what Ronald Reagan acknowledged publicly, decades later, was a "mistake."

These Japanese Americans and their children and grandchildren are more horrified than most at what's happening today, because they know what it's like to be quietly contributing to a community and to lose everything to racism and scapegoating. They were the last victims when the U.S. hauled out the Alien Enemies Act as the current administration has just done.

Over 2,000 people came to the Manzanar pilgrimage I attended and laid flowers at a memorial within the cemetery onsite. Hundreds of locals also came to direct traffic and work behind the scenes. As a result, I did not get to the visitor center or see any of the exhibits. That's why I returned after my hike.

The memorial's Kanji characters signify "Soul Consoling Tower," and it was built in 1943. In total, 150 internees died in Manzanar, including two young men who were shot when a crowd gathered outside the military police station, giving voice to a range of grievances. 

After releasing teargas, in the confusion that followed, soldiers fired their guns into the crowd and struck several people, two of whom died.

But it was also interesting to learn that 188 couples married at Manzanar and that 541 babies were born there. The exhibits reflect both the humiliations of camp life (showers and toilets with no stalls) and the ways in which the captives humanized their environment, creating gardens and organizing musical performances.

About a year after they were incarcerated, they were required to answer a "loyalty test," an insult to those who were born American and a problem for those who'd come as immigrants. Japanese elders were not allowed to become U.S. citizens, and the loyalty test asked them to forswear their Japanese citizenship. They'd have no country to call home. But those who "passed" the test were often required to join the military. (Their remarkable contributions in battle are among those recently erased from the U.S. Army website by the current administration.)

And those who were allowed to leave the camps were forbidden to return to their homes. With $25 and a bus ticket, they had to forge a life somewhere new, away from the west coast. Those who didn't "pass" were deported or sent to the camp at Tule Lake, where they were truly imprisoned.

As signs proclaimed at the ceremony: "Stop Repeating History" and "No More Concentration Camps."

How do we permit such ugliness in human affairs to resurface in a world of so much natural beauty?