Dust storms occurred with great frequency at Manzanar. Photographer Dorothea Lange later wrote, “Well, they had the meanest dust storms there and not a blade of grass. And the springs are so cruel. When those people arrived there they couldn’t keep the tarpaper on the shacks. Oh my, there were some pretty terrible chapters in that history.” Photograph by Dorothea Lange, Owens Valley, California, July 3, 1942.
Few toys found space among the limited necessities people were allowed to bring with them to the camps. This toy lending facility at Manzanar War Relocation Center was coordinated by the Religious Society of Friends (also known as the Quakers), which spoke out against the incarceration and sent volunteers to make camp life less hostile. Photograph by Toyo Miyatake, Toy Loan Center, c. 1944. Courtesy Toyo Miyatake Studio.
Informal school classes began at the temporary centers and continued through the first months at permanent camps, taught mostly by college-educated inmates. Formal classes started in the fall of 1942 and continued for the duration of the war. Photograph by Dorothea Lange, Owens Valley, California, July 1, 1942.
For Japanese Americans who returned to their West Coast homes after the war, many found their prewar lives in ruins. Squatters had claimed their homes while thieves left behind little of value. Only 25% of pre-war farm operators recovered their land after the war. Occasionally, non-Japanese friends maintained or looked after properties. Near Sacramento, Bob Fletcher (pictured here at a farm formerly operated by J. Nitta) quit his job to manage the fruit farms of three incarcerated Japanese American families. Photograph by Francis Stewart, c. 1940s. Florin, California. WRA Collection via the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.
