Daily Life

Japanese Americans endured many changes and indignities. However, a great number attempted to make the best of a bad situation. The War Relocation Authority [WRA], the civilian agency that administered the camp, formed an advisory council of internee-elected block managers. Internees with the support of the WRA established churches, temples, and boys and girls clubs. They developed sports, music, dance, and other recreational programs. They built gardens and ponds and published a newspaper, the Manzanar Free Press.

Most adults worked, maintaining and operating the camp. Children and many adults attended school. The barracks had no cooking facilities. That meant that internees had to line up three times a day, in any kind of weather, to eat at their block mess hall.

As the war turned in America’s favor, restrictions were lifted, and Japanese Americans were allowed to leave the camps. Church groups, service organizations, and some camp administrators helped find sponsors and jobs in the Midwest and the East.

A total of 11,070 Japanese Americans came through Manzanar. From a peak of 10,046 in September 1942, the population dwindled to 6,000 by 1944. The last few hundred internees left in November 1945, three months after the war ended. Many of them had spent three-and-a-half years at Manzanar, some had no home to return to.