A wooden sign designates the Manzanar War Relocation Center with a view of the snow covered Eastern Sierra Nevada Range of California in the distance.
Manzanar was one of 10 concentration camps created by the United States government, to incarcerate more than 120,000 United States citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II. The Japanese Americans were held from March 1942 to November 1945. Manzanar is located in the Owens Valley close to Death Valley and the Nevada border. The name Manzanar means apple orchard in Spanish, which comes from the name of the town once located there, as well as the area’s previous farming history.