Manzanar War Relocation Center

Sign marking the entrance to the Manzanar War Relocation Center, near Lone Pine, California; photograph by Ansel Adams, 1943.

Manzanar War Relocation Center, internment facility for Japanese Americans during World War II. In March 1942 the U.S. War Relocation Authority was set up; fearing subversive actions, it established 10 relocation centres for persons of Japanese ancestry, located in California, Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and Arkansas. The best known of these, and the first to be established, was the Manzanar War Relocation Center near Lone Pine, Calif.; it operated from March 1942 to November 1945. During this time some 10,000 people were confined there. In 1992 it was named a national historic site. An interpretive centre opened in the camp’s high school auditorium in 2004. The facility includes exhibits and a bookstore.