“What’s Manzanar?”: Excavating Stories of Racism, of the Erased, and of Family

Abstract

Background/Research Design: This ethnographic study explores how secondary students engaged with the history of Japanese American incarceration while participating in an archaeological dig at one of the prison camps used by the U.S. government during World War II, the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California. Purpose/Research Question: Using two tenets from Asian(Crit), (re)constructive history, and story, theory, and praxis as a theoretical frame, this study explores the question: How does participation in an archeological dig at Manzanar prison camp reveal and shape how students perceive the history of Japanese American incarceration? Conclusions: Four findings emerged from this study. First, students’ dominant understanding justified incarceration as a wartime necessity. Second, students were exposed to narratives at Manzanar that emphasized racism, countering classroom curriculum. The third finding explores how the family history of one Japanese American student informed her conceptualization of the U.S. history curriculum as purposefully whitewashed. Finally, once they had returned to school, students of color doubted whether their work at Manzanar or their sharing of counterstories would impact their white classmates.