Five Who Were Incarcerated At Manzanar Featured in National Park Service’s Civil War to Civil Rights Trading Cards

The following is a press release from the National Park Service.

INDEPENDENCE, CA — Trading cards have been popular with kids for generations, from images of sports figures to movie stars. Now, Manzanar National Historic Site is offering free trading cards featuring five people who were incarcerated at Manzanar War Relocation Center between March 1942 and November 1945:

• Sue Kunitomi Embrey, long-time organizer of the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage.
• Toyo Miyatake, whose photographs left an extraordinary visual record of Manzanar.
• Ralph Lazo, a Mexican American teen who chose to live at Manzanar to be near his Japanese American friends.
• Elaine Black Yoneda, a Russian American woman who chose to live at Manzanar with her Japanese American husband and son.
• Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, author of Farewell to Manzanar, the story of her childhood behind barbed wire.

The cards available at Manzanar are part of a series of 550 cards available at participating National Parks throughout the United States. To “earn” a trading card, kids may participate in a ranger-led tour or answer a question about their visit to the park.

“The trading cards are another way to share some of the 10,000 stories central to Manzanar‘s multi-layered history,” said Superintendent Les Inafuku. “The trading cards are a great way to engage kids with our history as a nation, both here at Manzanar and throughout the United States.”

Inafuku added that the cards provide an incentive to families with children to visit all parks that offer the cards.

Each trading card tells a little-known story, but collectively, the cards describe the struggles we have endured as a nation to strive for freedom and equality. For example, the Civil War Sesquicentennial and the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement provide opportunities to reflect upon our past, celebrate the strides we have made and look forward with commitment to achieve a more perfect union.

The public can access the full set of cards at the TradingCardsNPS Flickr site.

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LEAD PHOTO courtesy National Park Service.

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