Memorial to the Embraced and Discarded: The Manzanar I-Rei-To and Nikkei Buddhist-Christian Responses to U.S. Nationalism during World War II

Abstract

abstract:This article considers Buddhist and Christian Nikkei responses to U.S. nationalism through an examination of the I-Rei-To Memorial, which was designed to remember those who died while incarcerated at the Manzanar War Relocation Authority camp. It argues that efforts to create and maintain a memorial for the deceased created instances of interfaith cooperation among Nikkei that were shaped by the shared experiences of wartime racialization. Furthermore, the I-Rei-To design embodied multivalent meanings that served to challenge portrayals of the imprisoned as alien enemies while also serving the needs of both Buddhists and Christians in the camp. Even as the U.S. government actively worked to erase the memory of the camps and the memorial at the end of World War II, the resonance of these multivalent meanings persisted through postwar interfaith pilgrimages to the memorial site by a small number of former internees.