CaliforniaPreps.com - When Politics Was Sidelined

October 30, 2009

Dave Keefer
CaliforniaPreps.com Publisher

(This article was written by Eric Sondheimer of the Los Angeles Times)

Sixty-five years ago, courage took the field as Manzanar High -- the children of Japanese American internees -- played its only intersectional athletic event, a football game against Big Pine High.

When politics, race or religion prevents people from talking or even shaking hands, it's left to sports competition to save the day.

And so it was, 65 years ago, in the middle of World War II, that courage and what was right came through on a makeshift high school football field in Manzanar, Calif., in the Owens Valley.

Manzanar High School, made up of sons and daughters of Japanese Americans interned by Executive Order 9066 signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, played their first and only interscholastic athletic event, a football game against Big Pine High on Oct. 25, 1944.

One of those at the camp was Henry Nakano, who at 13 was forced to leave North Hollywood with his family and arrived at Camp Manzanar, where for three years he lived behind barbed wire with armed guards in watchtowers. A sprawling high school developed, with lots of sports activities between the students. But not until Big Pine agreed to play the football game did the kids get to face opponents outside their camp.

Manzanar used its speed to defeat Big Pine, 33-0, in front of 1,000 fans. They played six-man tackle football.

"There was no taunting, no fighting," said Nakano, who played in the game and is now 82 and living in Fullerton. "It went off very smoothly."

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