It’s hard to imagine California ever lending it’s land to house a concentration camp. But in the 1940s, the United States imprisoned more than 110,000 Japanese Americans, sending them to Manzanar, a “relocation center” at the base of the Sierra Mountains. Now a protected historical site, the remaining structures stand to remind us of a time when civil liberties could be stripped from entire communities at the hands of the government (coughProp8cough). Over the last 25 years, photographer Mark Kirchner has made annual pilgrimages to Manzanar, documenting his journey along the way and gaining greater insight into cultural processes, identity and racism.
Mondays-Fridays, 11 a.m. Starts: Feb. 9. Continues through May 5, 2009