EQUITY WATCH : Manzanar Memories

The strength of a nation lies in recognizing its past mistakes and creating a consciousness so that they are not repeated. The U.S. government has formally apologized for the unjust internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Now it is examining how to commemorate that sad chapter in U.S. history so that the lessons learned will be remembered.

The Department of the Interior and the National Park Service rightly have endorsed a proposal by Reps. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) and Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose) to establish a national historic site at Manzanar, Calif. There, on a barren site east of the Sierra Nevada, the government built one of 10 internment camps where Japanese-Americans were incarcerated following the attack on Pearl Harbor. More than 100,000 people--most U.S. citizens--spent World War II in camps behind barbed wire and under military guard. It took almost 40 years for a Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to formally conclude the camps resulted from “race prejudice, war hysteria and failure of political leadership,” not because of military necessity.

Congress acknowledged the injustice in 1988 and approved reparations for Japanese-Americans. President Bush began sending out letters of apology and checks last fall.

All that remains at Manzanar today are abandoned guard posts and a stark stone monument that juts out above the scrubland. Manzanar is already a national landmark, but upgrading that sadly desolate place to a national historic site would be a fitting footnote to a terrible injustice.