During World War II, the U.S. government feared the ranks of Japanese Americans harbored spies for the Emperor. To contain this "yellow peril", they shipped thousands of Americans of Japanese Ancestry from their homes in Hawaii to a desolate, windswept corner of the Owens Valley in California where they spent the war detained in a Spartan, unwelcoming internment camp called Manzanar, the most famous of 10 such camps. Ansel Adams was one of a handful of photographers to shoot these uprooted communities during some of the most bitter years of their lives when their country questioned their loyalty and they lived a life of isolation and despair. Some of the remarkable images he took will be on display at the Honolulu Academy of Art from Sept. 7 through October 29.

Map, Wikipedia on Manzanar, Manzanar Museum

—Alex, 08/20/06