When I first showed this painting to my brother Peter I told him that the title was "Keep Out Fuji". Peter pointed at it and said "That's Manzanar."
In 1942 some 110,000 Japanese American citizens of good and patriotic character were rounded up, forced to sell their property on short notice and taken to internment camps where they remained until the end of World War II. While the United States was then one of the Allied forces fighting against the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan... there were no internment camps set up for Americans of German or Italian descent.
The largest of these camps was Manzanar, in California's hot, dry and dusty Owens Valley.
The residents of the camp published a newspaper, "The Manzanar Free Press" which has been archived by the University of California at Los Angeles. Today, I found the following item from the Manzanar Free Press dated Friday, July 24, 1942 ...or precisely sixty three years ago :
Diogenes ends Search here
Diogenes need not search for an honest man in Manzanar.It isn't necessary, in the opinion of Y. Murakami, who dropped a wallet containing $50 in Block 18 men's lavatory yesterday.
When he found his wallet missing, Murakami thought he would never again see the same crisp bills that were in it. But he was wrong.
Satoru Okamoto, 18-5-2, found the wallet and returned the entire contents intact to its rightful owner, who gave a generous reward to the finder.
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Keep Out (Manzanar) FujiOil on Canvas 4 x 5" Photo by Jay York |
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