Questions for Photo 5
1. The boundaries of all but the most isolated of the relocation centers were defined by guard towers and barbed wire fences. The boundaries were patrolled by military police, armed with rifles with fixed bayonets. Why do you think the government thought such measures were necessary?
2. Why do you think WRA photographers were forbidden to take pictures of guard towers?
3. In 1943, a WRA report stated that: "the contrast between the barbed wire and the confinement within Manzanar and the observable freedom and motion for those immediately outside, is galling to a good many residents."¹ Do you think that these conditions made the relocation centers into prisons or concentration camps, as some historians have argued? Discuss.
¹1943 Report of the War Relocation Authority, cited in Jeffery F. Burton, et al., Confinement and Ethnicity, 45.
* The photo on this screen has a resolution of 72 dots per inch (dpi), and therefore will print poorly. You can obtain a larger version of Photo 5, but be aware that the file will take as much as 32 seconds to load with a 28.8K modem.