Manzanar

ID Card

In 1942 the United States Governmentordered over 110,000 men, women,

and children to leave their homes anddetained them in remote, military-

style camps. Two-thirds of them wereborn in America. Not one was

convicted of espionage or sabotage.

In this booklet, you will read the storyof a person who lived this history, in

his or her own words.

MARGARET D’ILLE GLEASONCamp: Manzanar, CAAddress: WRA Staff

Housing Area

I was born MargaretLillian Matthew inSpringfield, Illinois,November 20, 1879. Myparents Winfield ScottMatthew and MarionLillian Pomeroy were bothgraduates of Northwestern University and married onChristmas Day 1877. I was the first of their 12children. My father was a Methodist minister, and we movedoften. My parents had five children by 1887 when wetraveled by train, with my grandmother, to Los Angeles.There, Father was dean of the University of SouthernCalifornia. We moved to Berkeley in 1892 when Fatherbecame editor of the California Christian Advocate. Hecommuted to San Francisco on the ferry and was therewhen the 1906 earthquake struck. My father said thesorrows and toils of those awful days were beyondhuman words. After I graduated from the University of California,Berkeley, I taught school for a brief period. In 1903, Ijoined the national staff of the YWCA. For five years Itraveled, organizing groups of girls in the preparatoryschools of New England and other eastern states.

It was my younger brother, Allen Matthew, who firstintroduced me to UC Berkeley freshman Ralph P.Merritt. No one was more surprised than I to meet Ralphagain many years later when he became project directorat Manzanar. I was called to Japan in 1908 where, for ten years,I was a secretary of the National YWCA. It was duringthis time that I learned to love and admire the Japanesepeople and culture. During the Russian Revolution, 1918to 1920, I served the Indochinese Red Cross in Siberiadoing relief work for the Russians. I was based inVladivostok. Returning the United States, I again joinedthe national staff of the YWCA, working with thefinancial division. In 1927, I became General Secretaryof the Oakland YWCA. I was 56 when I married Arthur D’Ille in October1935. We had met in Siberia, where he was in the U.S.diplomatic services. For a year and a half we livedhappily on an avocado ranch in Vista, SouthernCalifornia. When he died, I moved to San Franciscoand took up social work with the California State ReliefAdministration. A friend described my work as “visitingthe poor people living in abandoned boats at Hunter’sPoint.” I was 63 when I moved to Manzanar War RelocationCenter as the chief of Community Welfare and headcounselor. My experiences in Japan decades earlier wereimportant for helping me to understand Japaneseculture and Japanese Americans. The central office of the Community Welfare Sectionwas established in Block 1. Our small office was

equipped with one cupboard, two long tables, andbenches. We had a corner for private interviews behindtwo screens. There were no desks, chairs, files ortelephone and only one typewriter. During 1942, the Community Welfare staff usuallymet each day to discuss our work and policies. Atraining course with lectures and discussion aboutsocial work philosophy and policy was conducted byHarry and Lillian Matsumoto, superintendents of theChildren’s Village, the only orphanage in a WarRelocation Center. During the war, it housed up to 101children, newborns to teenagers. Our staff meetings and training programs were oftenhampered by language. Many older people spoke andread only Japanese while most young people spoke andread English. Since not everyone spoke both languages,we had a combination of older and younger employees.Language and cultural questions were a constantconsideration. The question of how far Japaneselanguage, culture, ideals, and manners should berecognized in a community whose background wasJapanese but we felt should increasingly be a part ofAmerican life, came up repeatedly. We attempted

to unite both culturalpatterns, but workedconstantly toward futureAmerican understanding. We encountered greatdifficulty in familyconflicts between oldJapanese cultural ideas

We encountered greatdifficulty in familyconflicts between oldJapanese culturalideas and those ofmodern youngJapanese Americans.

Manzanar War Relocation Center, 1942

and those of modern young Japanese Americans. Theclose life under crowed housing conditions aggravatedthis clash of ideas. Grandparents wished to controltheir grandchildren in discipline, manners, food, andsleeping habits. Parents’ control of selection of theirchildren’s mates was accentuated in the camp. Youngpeople’s lives were constantly under the eye of theirparents and others. Children had difficulty findingspace, time, and quiet for homework. There were oftenstrong differences of opinion between the older andyounger Japanese Americans. Our staff stood betweenthe old Japanese thinking and extremes of modernideas, with an effort to unite family life anddevelopment. We tried to urge preservation of the bestin both ways, and the need for preparation for the futureon the basis of reality and not prejudice. On Thanksgiving Day, 1942, my old friend RalphMerritt became project director of the War RelocationAuthority at Manzanar. As he walked into the messhall where the 200 staff gathered for Thanksgivingdinner, I waved my hand beckoning him. I was a friendly

and familiar face. He was relieved to find meManzanar’s Community Welfare director. Ralph latersaid that with my background and long acquaintancewith Japanese people, I was the “right person in theright place at the right moment to minister to the needsof the 10,000 evacuees living behind barbed wirefences.” On Sunday afternoon, December 6, 1942, theturbulent forces that had been at work broke into amass riot like a thunderstorm over the Sierra Nevada.It was a tragic affair–no one person was to blame.There was no one cause. Many grievances of manykinds created uncontrollable mass emotions. Late thatnight, the final tragedy was enacted with the gunfirethat wounded and killed men. In the day and nights after the riot, the internees atManzanar refused to come out of their barracks to doany of the necessary work for a city of 10,000 people.It was a dead city. No children came out to play. Nolights burned at night. Days went by and Ralph couldfind no way to bring about the normal way of living,where children played and went to school, and peoplewent about their daily routines. Two weeks following the riot, Ralph was sitting inhis office listening to telephoned instructions to ‘gettough.’ Kindly, I asked him what he planned to do.“Ralph Merritt, have you forgotten your Christianupbringing?’ I asked. “Have you forgotten that this isChristmas and what Christmas means?” I said therewas a warehouse full of presents that had been shippedto Manzanar by churches and friends who wanted to

give Christmas happiness to the more than 1,000children living behind barbed wire. I suggested Ralphsend trucks and men to the mountains to cut trees andbring them back to the camp to set up in front of eachbarracks, decorated with lights; and that presentsshould be distributed the day before Christmas sopeople could prepare Christmas trees for Christmasmorning. I reminded him there was a Children’s Village atManzanar, which was under my department. The babiesand teenagers had picked up by the Army from Alaskato San Diego as ‘security risks.’ I proposed we arrange agreat children’s party at the Children’s Village onChristmas Eve. That night, Ralph, his wife Varina, andI walked through the dark, dead camp to our Children’sVillage where happy voices welcomed us. We satJapanese fashion on the floor surrounded by excited,happy children while the Christmas scene of shepherdsand wise men was enacted upon a little stage. Then,there was Santa Claus and presents and we began tosing Christmas carols. As we sang, we suddenly realized that there wasmore singing than the voices of the little childrengathered in that room. Ralph got up and quietly walkedout into the night. The clear moon and stars wereshining over the Sierras. From out in the darkness,Christmas carols were being sung by children outsidethe village. Ralph looked out on the upturned faces of boys andgirls of Japanese ancestry, born in America, Americancitizens, from our own schools, who were standing

there in the night singing Christmas carols along withthe children of the village. We called out to wisheverybody a Merry Christmas and they wished all ofus a Merry Christmas. Then Ralph, Varina and I stoodalone watching the star that was above us. Ralphturned to me. He said, “Peace has come again toManzanar.” I was 67 when I met Manzanar visitor GeorgeGleason, formerly a YMCA secretary in Japan. Manzanarclosed in 1945, and George and I married on February9, 1946. We moved to Los Angeles where I lived foreight years in the midst of many old and new friends,enjoying two auto trips across the continent, and oneinto Western Canada. From my two marriages, I acquired threestepdaughters and six grandchildren. I loved them as amother and grandmother. For the last four years of my life, I was an invalid,and for the final two and a half months was confinedto my bed. Even so, my life was richin outgoing and incoming love, in wideinterests and in friendshipsreaching around the world. Based on my experience atManzanar, I hope today’s youngpeople will protect civil liberties and stand up for oneanother. Recognize, appreciate, and show respect forpeople of different ethnicity. At one time or another,we were all immigrants to this country. I pray youngAmericans continue to practice the values on whichour country is based: freedom and justice for all.

At one timeor another,we were allimmigrants tothis country.

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MANZANARLocation: Inyo County,California, at theeastern base of theSierra Nevada.Environmental Conditions: Temperatures can beover 100 degrees in summer and below freezingin winter. Strong winds & dust storms arefrequent.Acreage: 6,000Opened: March 21, 1942 as a Reception Centerand June 1, 1942 as a War Relocation Center.Closed: November 21, 1945Max. Population: 10,046 (September 1942)Demographics: Most internees were from theLos Angeles area, Terminal Island, and the SanFernando Valley. Others came from the SanJoaquin Valley and Bainbridge Island.

Wind and DustThis wind and dust I have to bearHow hard it blows I do not care.

But when the wind begins to blow --My morale is pretty low.

I know that I can see it throughBecause others have to bear it too.

So I will bear it with the restAnd hope the outcome is the best.

-- George Nishimura, age 16 (1943)

This booklet was developed by the park rangers atManzanar National Historic Site in partnership withthe the individuals profiled and their families.

The National Park Service cares for specialplaces saved by the American people so thatall may experience our heritage. To learnmore about your national parks, visit the

National Park Service website at www.nps.gov. To learnmore about Manzanar National Historic Site, please visitour website at www.nps.gov/manz.

Manzanar National Historic SiteP.O. Box 426, Independence, CA 93526

Tel. 760-878-2194E-mail: manz_superintendent@nps.gov

Manzanar Cemetery, Winter 2002.

Printing was made possible by a grant from theCalifornia Civil Liberties Public Education Program.

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