The Moving Story of Bringing Baseball Back to Manzanar, Where Thousands of Japanese Americans Were Incarcerated During World War II

In honor of his mother and others imprisoned at the internment camp, baseball player Dan Kwong has restored a diamond in the California desert

Rachel Ng - Freelance writer

March 27, 2025

aerial of new baseball field at Manzanar National Historic Site — Visitors to Manzanar National Historic Site will be able to run the bases around the restored baseball field, sit on the bleachers and look out into the looming mountain range from home plate. Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

“Play ball,” the umpire hollered. The modest crowd roared. Little Tokyo Giants lead-off batter Dan Kwong stepped up to the plate. A gust of dry desert wind whipped up the loose sand across the infield. Kwong looked out to the clear-blue skies and craggy Sierra Nevada in the distance, taking in the moment.

“People were cheering,” Kwong reflected. “It was rather surreal that after all these months of work I was actually playing in a real game.”

The Moving Story of Bringing Baseball Back to Manzanar, Where Thousands of Japanese Americans Were Incarcerated During World War II — Baseball game, Manzanar Relocation Center, Calif. / photograph by Ansel Adams Library of Congress

It was a scene plucked out of Ansel Adams’ iconic 1943 photo of a baseball game at California’s Manzanar Relocation Center. Only this time, the date was October 26, 2024, and Kwong and his teammates from the Little Tokyo Giants faced off against the Lodi JACL Templars in the inaugural game at Manzanar National Historic Site—the first since the incarceration camp closed in November 1945. Both well-established Japanese American amateur teams, the Giants beat the Templars handily in an eight-inning game, which was followed by an all-star game where players donned 1940s-style uniforms and played with vintage gloves and bats. The momentous doubleheader marked the soft launch of the newly restored field at Manzanar, a camp where more than 10,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.

The creation of the camps

Citing the need to guard against espionage and sabotage, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066 on February 19, 1942, forcibly removing more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes in the Western United States and moving them to ten remote camps in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Arkansas, Arizona and California.

Although they were labeled as “enemy aliens,” these first- and second-generation law-abiding Japanese Americans lived the lives of everyday Americans. They ranged from fishermen who harvested tuna around Southern California’s Terminal Island to farmers who grew strawberries on Washington’s Bainbridge Island, and from flower growers who cultivated sweet peas in Phoenix to restaurant owners and grocers in Oregon. And while many of them resided in bustling ethnic enclaves throughout the West Coast, their children attended integrated public schools, and the families went to community churches.

Japanese Americans wait for train to take them to Manzanar in 1942 — Japanese Americans wait in Los Angeles for the train to take them to Manzanar in April 1942. Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

When the Japanese American community received the forced evacuation notice, they were given 48 hours to pack their bags and leave their homes and pets, and get on trains and buses. They were placed in temporary assembly centers—racetracks, fairgrounds, rodeo grounds—where they waited to be transferred to more permanent facilities.

How baseball figured into life at the camps

When they arrived in the far-flung camps in the remote deserts, families were assigned to 20-by-25-foot rooms within a wooden barrack; each room was equipped with a single light bulb, a stove and cots. “There’s a potbelly stove,” Michiko Wada, who was incarcerated at Manzanar, said in an interview with Densho, a nonprofit that documents oral histories from Japanese Americans during World War II. “That’s how you kept the room warm.”

replica of Manzanar barracks — Visitors to Manzanar National Historic Site can see a replica of the interior of internment camp barracks. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In Manzanar, temperatures often drop below freezing during winter months, while summer peaks at around 110 degrees Fahrenheit—with winds beating relentlessly year-round. “It seemed like they had a collection of wood that had knot holes in it, because every piece had a knot hole. You look around, and I kind of thought, well, times are tough right now,” said Taira Fukushima, who was at Manzanar as a teenager, in an interview with Densho. “When the wind blew, the dust would come through the hole. Without plasterboard in the ceiling, it was hotter than hot during the day and cold in the evening.” Privacy was nonexistent, as the rooms in the early days were separated by curtains, and the communal bathrooms and showers had no partitions. “Each block … in the center, each had a men’s restroom and a women’s restroom,” said Noboru Kamibayashi, who was at Manzanar as a child, in an interview with Densho. “I remember the toilet seats were like you see in the old Army pictures—there were no walls or anything separating one seat from the other, and it was very, very humiliating. It was hard to get used to.” Each toilet was shared by at least two dozen people, which often resulted in long lines during morning and evening rush.

students walk in between buildings at Manzanar Relocation Center — Students walk in between buildings at Manzanar Relocation Center in 1943. Buyenlarge/Getty Images

These Americans tried to maintain some sense of normalcy amid harsh conditions in the unforgiving desert. They built community gardens, danced at high school proms, prayed at churches, sang in choirs, and raised chickens and hogs. “The movies, in general, were really great,” former internee Ron Osajima told Densho. “It was Saturday night, and they were outside. … It was a terrific thing. Everyone got to go to these.” Michiko Amatatsu told Densho that during her second summer at Manzanar the rec hall offered picnics. “We could take the Army convoy, and they would take us up toward the mountain, and there was a stream,” Amatatsu recalled. “It was in July, I remember, when our turn came. They fixed us lunch, and the convoy came and picked us up. And we went way up in between the sagebrushes. We got there. Oh, it was so relaxing. But it was packed with young people, because different recreation halls came. … That was the first time we ever had so much fun. We got to sing. We had a ball then. It was so good to get away for a change.”

Internees watch a band concert at Manzanar Relocation Center in 1943. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Many of them assumed roles that they held in their communities before they were unjustly imprisoned, working as doctors and nurses in the camp hospitals, managing food supplies for the mess hall, and teaching children in camp classrooms. At all the camps, internees played—and watched—baseball.

“Once they got into the camp, it was dismal and demeaning. Their civil liberties were taken away. Their constitutional rights and their sense of normalcy were stripped, and yet, [the War Relocation Authority] let them play the all-American pastime,” says Kerry Yo Nakagawa, an author, a historian and the director of the Nisei Baseball Research Project, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the history of Japanese American baseball. “You would think they would reject it and be bitter. But instead, they embraced it.”

Baseball wasn’t just important for the athletes; it was also significant for their fans—their parents, grandparents, cousins, nephews, aunts and uncles. “They could watch baseball played at a super-high level, and [it would] take them away from that pain. Baseball gave them hope. It was their elixir,” says Nakagawa.

boys at Manzanar enjoy a game of softball at recess — Boys at Manzanar enjoy a game of softball at recess. HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Baseball was first introduced to Japan in 1872 by an American teacher named Horace Wilson, and the sport quickly gained popularity. In the late 19th century, thousands of Japanese workers immigrated to Hawaii to work on sugarcane plantations, bringing their love of baseball with them. Recreational leagues featured Japanese, Filipino, white and Portuguese laborers, who unwound after a long day of harvest with a few innings of baseball.

The first all-Japanese baseball team outside of Japan, the Excelsior, was formed by the Reverend Takie Okumura in 1899 on Oahu. Shortly after, in 1903, the first mainland team, the San Francisco Fuji Athletic Club, was co-founded by famous artist Chiura Obata. In the prewar period, even as Japanese American baseball players were relegated to segregated leagues, these semi-pro teams had huge followings. Then came the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“There was a team called the San Pedro Skippers. Before World War II, they were so popular that the Japanese immigrant fishermen would have their radios on when they were close to the coast to listen to the game,” says Naomi Hirahara, co-author of Life After Manzanar. “It was a point of pride in the fishing industry and the farming communities. It was a way for people to socialize.”

Baseball was the largest sport at Manzanar, with ten baseball and softball diamonds on the grounds and more than 120 teams divided into 12 year-round leagues, explains David Goto, the arborist at Manzanar National Historic Site. Some of the teams featured star athletes who had played in semi-pro leagues, like Pete Mitsui of the San Fernando Aces and softball powerhouse Rosie M. Kakuuchi of the Dusty Chicks. Thousands of internees attended the games.

softball practice at Manzanar Relocation Center in 1942 — Maye Noma stands behind the plate while Tomi Nagao swings at the ball in a softball practice for the Chick-A-Dee team at Manzanar Relocation Center in May 1942. Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

While spectators were kept behind fences, Japanese American baseball players were allowed to travel by train and bus to other camps—from Gila River, Arizona, to Heart Mountain, Wyoming—to compete. “Putting on a baseball uniform was like putting on the American flag,” says Nakagawa.

In 1943, when the War Department created the segregated all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, some of the ball players, including Masato “Mauch” Yamashita, who long played for the Lodi JACL Templars and was held at the Rohwer Japanese American Relocation Center in Arkansas, enlisted to fight in the war. To this day, the 442nd remains the most decorated unit of its size and time of service in U.S. military history, with more than 4,000 Purple Hearts, over 4,000 Bronze Stars, 29 Distinguished Service Crosses and 588 Silver Stars.

And while Japanese American baseball did continue after the war, with new teams forming, like the Little Tokyo Giants, it didn’t rival its popularity of the ’20s and ’30s. None of the internment camp players made it to Major League Baseball, but George Omachi, who played for the Denson All-Stars at the Jerome War Relocation Center in Denson, Arkansas, eventually became a scout for the league.

Building a field of dreams

In 1944, the landmark decision in Korematsu v. United States stated that the federal government had the power and authority to arrest and intern Fred Korematsu, a 25-year-old Japanese American who was found guilty of violating the evacuation order. On the same day, Ex parte Endo was issued by the same court, which found that the federal government cannot confine a loyal American citizen, the then-24-year-old Mitsuye Endo who was interned at California’s Tule Lake camp, indefinitely without charges. Two weeks after the Endo decision, Roosevelt ended the West Coast exclusion. Most Japanese Americans were able to leave the camps by January 2, 1945, but it took months before everyone was able to leave.

When the incarceration camps closed after the last internees left, the U.S. government tore down Manzanar’s barracks, recreation buildings, schools, guard towers and baseball fields. In his final report on Manzanar, project director Ralph Merritt wrote, “Thus ends the story of Manzanar as a relocation center. … Manzanar will return to the desert and be forgotten.” What remained were a high school auditorium and a stark white obelisk with the word ireito, meaning “memorial tower,” carved into it. For years, Manzanar laid bare.

where the baseball fields used to be at Manzanar — When the incarceration camps closed after the last internees left, the U.S. government tore down Manzanar’s barracks, recreation buildings, schools, guard towers and baseball fields. Dan Kwong

Even after Manzanar was established as a national historic site in 1992, it took about a decade before the auditorium was converted into a visitors’ center; Japanese gardens were restored; and a replica mess hall, barracks, guard tower and basketball court were added to the site. In 2022, Jeff Burton, the cultural resources program manager at Manzanar, conducted an archaeological study and determined that there would be no adverse effects to restoring camp’s main baseball field. The following year, the park received a grant from the Fund for People in Parks that would finance the restoration project. But, in August 2023, Tropical Storm Hilary hit, flooding the fields and damaging the historic site.

Dan Kwong, along with a few dozen other volunteers, came out to help clear more than three acres of tumbleweed. It was then that Kwong, a longtime Manzanar volunteer, started fantasizing: If I build it, will they come?

“While I was there, pulling weeds, I started to hatch this idea of having an all-star game, where the players would wear 1940s-style uniforms and play games using vintage gloves,” Kwong says.

For Kwong, a Santa Monica-based artist, the restoration of the baseball diamond was his magnum opus and a tribute to his mother, Momo Nagano, who was incarcerated at Manzanar as a teenager.

Nagano was born in 1925 in Los Angeles. Her parents, who had immigrated from Hokkaido, Japan, leased farmland and sold produce at the local wholesale market. On the evening after the Pearl Harbor attack, her father was deemed a “dangerous enemy alien” and taken into custody by the FBI. A few months later, the rest of the family was bused to Manzanar. Nagano slept on a straw-filled canvas bag at night, attended high school in the morning, and, during her free time, watched baseball games and played softball. “She was a catcher,” says Kwong.

Kwong grew up hearing stories of every kind about Manzanar—scary, sad, funny and infuriating. “My mom was a storyteller. She was unusual for a nisei [second-generation Japanese American], because many of my peers had parents who never talked about the camp,” Kwong says. “It was this shameful piece of a painful past.”

Nagano, on the other hand, wrote about her time in Manzanar, shared her experiences with the national park’s oral history archives, corresponded with visiting high schoolers and donated her artwork to the historic site. She died in 2010, and the Manzanar Baseball Project was Kwong’s way of continuing his mother’s legacy—to bring wider attention to Manzanar through the lens of a beloved sport.

Dan Kwong — “She would get such a kick out of this if she could see this," says Kwong, of his mother. Aaron Rapoport

To make that dream a reality, for months, Kwong would wake up at 4 a.m. on Mondays to pack up all his tools and stock his cooler with chopped fruit, pistachios, beef jerky, licorice and macaroons. He would depart from his Santa Monica home, stop by Yum Yum Donuts for some bagels, then drive three and a half hours to Manzanar. With Frank Zappa and the Beatles blasting from the speakers, Kwong would drive his trusty Volvo wagon up U.S. Highway 395.

By the time Kwong reached Manzanar, the sun would be up and his friend and fellow volunteer Chris Siddens, a retired welder and construction worker, would already be setting up for the day. Sometimes joined by Goto and other volunteers, they would put in 8- to 12-hour days under the blazing sun. “If we’re lucky, it’s under a hundred degrees,” Kwong says. “But come 3 o’clock, in that late-afternoon sun, you’re in an oven.”

constructing the baseball field at Manzanar — It took 11 months, from November 2023 to October 2024, for the field to be game ready. Dan Kwong

As an artist, Kwong never imagined he’d be operating a jackhammer, a chainsaw, a concrete saw, a 40-foot boom lift and a pneumatic staple gun. One day, he’d be stretching and stapling 250 feet of chicken wire until his hands were raw. The next day, he’d be mapping out parking plans. And when he was not toiling under the hot sun, he was consulting with engineers and architects, sourcing materials from Home Depot, and working on budgets.

“This is the biggest project of my life,” says Kwong. “I’ve had horrible days. I walk out of there filthy and exhausted every day. I’m just a wreck.” But, in the same breath, he adds: “It has never crossed my mind that I was not going to finish this.”

Bit by bit, the field started to take shape—concrete poured, and bleachers, foul lines and a backstop erected. After the 11 months, from November 2023 to October 2024, that Kwong spent working weekdays at the site and returning home to L.A. on the weekends, the baseball field was game-day ready.

Dan Kwong with players in 1940s-style uniforms — When Kwong stepped onto the field for the October 2024 games, produced by L.A.-based multicultural arts organization Great Leap, it was with a lifetime of love for the game. Aaron Rapoport

“Dan’s willpower and determination brought that field to life,” says Goto.

When Kwong stepped onto the field for the October 2024 games, produced by L.A.-based multicultural arts organization Great Leap, it was with a lifetime of love for the game. His dad bought him his first glove and bat when he was just 6 years old. Even though Kwong never realized his dream to play center field for the Dodgers, he has been on the Little Tokyo Giants’ roster since the 1970s. “It’s my 53rd year with the team, the longest career in the history of Japanese American baseball leagues in California,” he says. “I’m not very good anymore, but I still love it.”

Making the annual pilgrimage to Manzanar

Journalist Togo W. Tanaka was hired as one of the camp’s documentary historians, and he reported for the War Relocation Authority on the difficult conditions at Manzanar, where he was interned from 1942 to 1943. When he was interviewed for an oral history project at California State University, Fullerton, in 1973, he said of Manzanar, “We had one objective: We wanted to get the hell out of there.” Yet, over the years, former internees and their family and friends returned to the site of their incarceration—to clean the cemetery, offer sutras to the dead and reminisce.

The anti-Vietnam War movement spurred a new generation of Japanese Americans to revisit the past injustices their families had endured. In December 1969, 150 people—mostly youths—arrived at Manzanar to commemorate the historic site, marking the first official Manzanar pilgrimage. Some of the original attendees, including Sue Kunitomi Embrey, an activist and longtime chair of the Manzanar Committee, were instrumental in the lobbying efforts to help Manzanar achieve its National Historic Landmark status.

annual pilgrimage to Manzanar — Thousands of people make an annual spring pilgrimage to Manzanar. Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Today, thousands of people make an annual spring pilgrimage, which features taiko drumming, speeches, a traditional interfaith service and ondo dancing. But for most attendees, it’s a day to remember.

“It’s healing for me to return to that ground where there was so much trauma and so much destruction,” says Hirahara. “For such a long time, people didn’t talk about it. They weren’t allowed to. Now, we have a national historic site, and so many young people are paying pilgrimage to it. It’s really affirming to people to recognize intergenerational trauma. It’s not just something that’s amorphous. It is concrete, and it’s real.”

watching baseball at Manzanar — A grand opening is in the works for October 2025, after the completion of a scoreboard and an announcer’s booth. Aaron Rapoport

When visitors return for the 56th annual Manzanar pilgrimage on April 26, they’ll be able to run the bases around the restored baseball field, sit on the bleachers and look out into the looming mountain range from home plate. A grand opening is in the works for October 2025, after the completion of a scoreboard and an announcer’s booth.

“Baseball was a way for people to express their Americanness, and it was the attempts of an imprisoned people to have hope, to have moments of joy inside the camp on the other side of barbed wires,” says Kwong. “They’re saying, ‘You can stick us out here in the middle of nowhere, take away everything we have, but we are still going to live. We’re going to make community. We’re going to build gardens. We’re going to play baseball.’”

Rachel Ng | | Read More

Rachel Ng is an award-winning writer and editor who has been published in National Geographic, Afar, Tripadvisor, AARP, The London Times, Outside, Men's Journal, Robb Report, Bon Appetit, Rachael Ray Every Day, and TheKitchn.com. She is a contributor to National Geographic's Great Outdoors U.S.A.: 1,000 Adventures Across All 50 States.

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