Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Manzanar

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 14:14, 17 September 2007.

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Manzanar

* Self-Nomination: This article just completed peer review. I was hoping for more than two reviews, but that's all we got before the peer review was archived. As such, I'm submitting for FA consideration.

I've had a lot to do with the development of this article, so I'm not sure how appropriate it is for me to detail why I believe it's worthy of FA consideration. I'll just say that I think it's a good article that, at the very least, should be considered. We'll see how it goes! Gmatsuda 16:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comments, as I mentioned at peer review, there is an External link farm which should be pruned per WP:RS, WP:EL and WP:NOT. To be comprehensive, the article should cover most of what is mentioned in External links; if it doesn't cover that material, it may not be comprehensive, if it does cover the material, then non-reliable sources aren't needed in EL. There is also still a 350px image which 1) is larger than a standard 300px infobox and 2) doesn't conform with WP:MOS#Images. Also see WP:MOS regarding punctuation of image captions. Another ce may be in order (example, no hyphen at ... thirst of a rapidly-growing metropolis ... see WP:HYPHEN and WP:DASH), and sentences like "For more information on the debate, see Japanese American Internment", are not compelling prose—a see also template should be used at the top of the section. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Response: Thanks for your comments. I'll take a look at all that later today when I get more time. Gmatsuda 17:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• I reduced the size of the lead photo. But, at least IMHO, reducing it further makes the article look worse, not better with all the white space. After reading WP:MOS#Images again, I note the following:

• Specifying the size of a thumb image is not recommended: without specifying a size the width will be what readers have specified in their user preferences, with a default of 180px (which applies for most readers). However, the image subject or image properties may call for a specific image width to enhance the readability or layout of an article. Cases where specific image width are considered appropriate include:

• On images with extreme aspect ratios
• When using detailed maps, diagrams or charts
• When a small region of an image is considered relevant, but the image would lose its coherence when cropped to that region
• On a lead image that captures the essence of the article.

IMHO, this is a lead image that indeed captures the essence of the article. It depicts the harsh conditions that the prisoners of Manzanar were forced to endure.

• Regarding punctuation of photo captions, I've made some changes as suggested. However, please note that for the majority of the historic photos, the original captions provided by the photographer were used.

• I have removed some hyphens and I've pared down the external links further. Is it OK now?

• Use a see also template? Oh...so THAT'S how that's done! I learned something new today! :-) Fixed. Gmatsuda 21:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I am not sure about specifically Manzanar, but several of these camps also held non-US citizen Italians and Germans during WWII; as far as I know Americans of German and Italian descent were not interred if they were US citizens, but I may be wrong. While you do mention Lazo (whom I'd not heard of before), this may be worth mentioning, especially if some of the Italians and Germans were at Manzanar. I'll look over more later.Rlevse 14:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Response: You are correct that some Italians and Germans were incarcerated by the US during WWII. However, Manzanar (and the nine other so-called "War Relocation Centers") were not among the camps where they were imprisoned. They were imprisoned in Justice Department Internment Camps (different from camps such as Manzanar) at Crystal City, TX and a few others. Gmatsuda 06:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, didn't know there was a difference in WRC and JDIC. What was the difference?Rlevse 23:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

There were three different types of camps (not including the Assembly Centers) where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during WWII. For more information, check out Japanese American internment. Gmatsuda 02:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Very comprehensive account. However (of course) there were some points I'd like to bring up:

• • The town of Manazanar is briefly mentioned in the lead, & I was left with the impression that this community still existed; only after poking around & reading the article more carefully, did I find out that the town was abandoned in 1929 -- a fact that would be helpful if it were mentioned in the lead.

• • The people forcibly detained there are called "prisoners", a word that IMHO doesn't fit. Has the word to described them been discussed somewhere? I did a search in the Talk page & the various reviews to see if this terminology has been discussed & found none. If there has been a discussion & the consensus was to use this word, I don't want to reopen a finsihed discussion, but from how the article describes their lives I feel a better choice would be "inmate" or "internee". -- llywrch 06:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Response: I edited the lead to clarify. Please let me know if it works for you now.

Regarding the use of "prisoner..." we had a long, rather drawn-out debate about terminology to use in the article in the talk page (now archived). Although the focus was on the use "concentration camp," "internment camp," "relocation center/camp," when referring to the ten camps of which Manzanar was the first, we decided that to keep everyone happy, we'd mention the terminology debate in the article briefly, and then refer people to Japanese American internment for more detail on that topic. The short explanation is that because "internment camp" is actually an inaccurate term to describe Manzanar, "internee," although widely-used, is also at least somewhat inaccurate. "Prisoner," while not necessarily widely-used, is accurate since those behind the barbed wire were indeed imprisoned. FYI: there wasn't much specific debate on the use of this term.

Thank you for taking a look at the article and offering your comments! Gmatsuda 13:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You added a little more detail to the lead than I was expecting -- but won't complain. ;-) I did make a few copy edits with the intent of smoothing out the style -- I hope you don't mind.

As for "prisoner", my problem with the word is that it implies to me undeniably close confinement, at the level of incarceration one owuld put felons -- numerous daily roll calls, forbidden to meet in large groups, kept in their dwellings under lock & key. Maybe this did happen -- but the article indicates none of this, so that would be an important omission. But if the level of confinement wasn't this strict, I'd suggest using "inmate" instead -- not because it is a euphemism (IIRC, the people confined in the infamous concentration camps are often referred to as "inmates"), but because it doesn't have the connotation "prisoner" has for me. -- llywrch 21:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Response: Thanks for your copy edits. Nice work. :-)

This debate is very similar to the one we had over what to call these camps in the Manzanar talk page (now archived). Specifically, we were focusing on the use of "concentration camp," which many people believe should only be used to describe the Nazi camps during WWII. However, that term, by definition, also describes the American camps such as Manzanar. After a couple of weeks of going back and forth, we came to an agreement, which wasn't perfect, but avoided the use of the euphemistic and the inaccurate terminology.

In this case, I don't think what we have here is anywhere near as big of an issue...and it shouldn't be, IMHO. Indeed, as for the use of "prisoner," I'm not sure it would be a good idea to get into a lengthy debate on terminology here, but the definitions vary, depending on what dictionary you refer to. Oxford's English Dictionary states:

prisoner (noun): person captured and kept confined by an enemy, opponent, or criminal.

Webster's is a bit different.

prisoner (noun): a person deprived of liberty and kept under involuntary restraint, confinement, or custody.

Certainly, that describes what the over 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry and their immigrant parents were. In fact, you could even make a case for them being prisoners of war. In any case, I hope the use of "prisoner" isn't a sticking point for FA consideration. Gmatsuda 22:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't mean for it to be. I do think it should be discussed at some point, but outside of the FA process & hopefully as dispassionately as possible. However, I did point out one possible solution that you apparently overlooked, which I'd like to repeat again: that the inmates were subjected to "numerous daily roll calls, forbidden to meet in large groups, kept in their dwellings under lock & key. Maybe this did happen -- but the article indicates none of this, so that would be an important omission." I'm bringing this up because most Americans honestly assume that official acts like this "can't happen here" -- or they trivialize events like this when it happens. From what little I know about this race-based internment, these Americans weren't simply moved to places like Manzanar where they idled about while receiving free room & board for years -- which one could willfully misread into this article. It's a sublte point, one I believe you could easily fix, & one I only noticed because I was trying to find evidence to disprove that impression. -- llywrch 00:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

They were not subject to roll calls, forbidden to meet in large groups (although groups were always scrutinized carefully by camp administration), kept under lock and key, etc. However, they were not free to leave the camps. As such, they were incarcerated or imprisoned. They were not simply "held," or "detained," both of which imply that their "detention" would have been much shorter than it was. And you made my point--many Americans do not believe stuff like this can happen in the US, and they often do trivialize such occurrances or try to "sanitize" it. Hence, the choice of "prisoner" to describe the people who were forced, usually at gunpoint, to travel to these desolate camps to be imprisoned for 3-4 years. Gmatsuda 06:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow...this discussion sure died...does that mean the FAC nomination is doomed due to lack of interest (or worse), or does it usually take longer than this (I don't know, so I'm asking)? Gmatsuda 05:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I usually make an effort not to fail things from lack of interest, which is why some articles spend upwards of 6 weeks on the FAC. Raul654 17:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah...ok. got it. Thanks. Gmatsuda 09:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

OK...maybe this will get things moving again...

• Support: I nominated this article, but I think it's really solid, even if I do say so myself. Gmatsuda 01:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
• Comment No opinion on the article yet, but we have a related Featured Picture that should be part of the article. ~ trialsanderrors 06:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Response: That photo was once included in the article. However, I thought there were more important photos that are more descriptive of the conditions, etc. at Manzanar during WWII. That photo was replaced with the one of the Manzanar Free Press, which I believe has more educational value. But I guess since that photo is an FP, I'll put it back. :-) Gmatsuda 07:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Yeah, usually a promotion to featured status means there is community consensus to feature it in the article(s) for which it is nominated. Generally, it seems that organizing some of the pictures into galleries might be a better option than the current layout. Also, there was a very public disagreement between Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange on how the fate of the internees should be depicted, which should probably be mentioned. ~ trialsanderrors 17:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Response: There was a gallery before, and it looked more cluttered and disorganized than it does now, and I wasn't the only one who felt that way. We had a consensus on that way back. As for the public disagreement between Adams and Lange, Adams' photos are often criticized for not being a balanced depiction of life in camp. However, he was also under tighter restrictions than Lange was in terms of what photos he was allowed to take. I also believe this issue would be better dealt with in the Born Free and Equal article. Gmatsuda 20:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment:I copyedited this article back in August, not so much for style as for mechanics and sense. I just re-read it, and I see a few more things I'd change to better satisfy the "well written" criterion. I will go ahead and makes those changes later, and they can be discussed after the fact on the article talk page. My main problem with the article as it stands is the neutrality criterion. There is an overall tone of hand-wringing over the abuse suffered by the shorter, darker people at the hands of the big, bad, non-prefixed Americans. That may well be a perfectly accurate characterization of the true state of affairs, I don't know, but such issues are probably better confined to articles specifically written to address them. This one is about a camp and a town. The facts will speak for themselves if they have anything to say, and they will speak more eloquently if they are not interrupted. A few examples should suffice:

"Owens Valley Paiute": They were forcibly forced? And did the soldiers have their guns pointed right at them the whole time, or did they sort of cradle their guns once in a while or put them over their shoulders?

*Response: Put it this way. They were forced to walk all the way from Manzanar to Fort Tejon by US Army soldiers who were armed. What else do you need? Does it really matter if they pointed their rifles at them constantly or not? I fixed the "forcibly forced" issue. :-) -- Gmatsuda 07:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I sort of rewrote "Owens Valley Paiute" to show you what I mean instead of trying to tell you. I left the old version unchanged below the new version, remarked out for ease of comparison and reversion. The old version contained a misleading, oversimplified cause-and-effect scenario (1. Find gold. 2. Remove Indians. 3. Dig mine. 5. Be rich.). I hope to read your article about the Paiute Trail of Tears one day. To answer your question about "gunpoint", one problem with it was that it unavoidably conjured a vivid image of people being marched along each with a gun muzzle constantly trained on his back. The word seemed journalistically emotive, too, like a reporter saying "The thug pumped three slugs into the cop's skull" instead of "The criminal shot the policeman three times in the head." Emotive is bad when you want encyclopedic. --Milkbreath 16:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

You went totally in the other direction in the rewrite when you used "armed escort," which makes it sound as if they were being protected from attackers as opposed to being forced to walk 200+ miles at gunpoint. As you said, "gunpoint is gunpoint." -- Gmatsuda 21:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

"Wartime": The reader senses a shell game with the terminology. Let's call them Japanese Americans, even though we clearly state that one third of them were not American citizens. That's OK because they were prevented by law from becoming citizens, but please ignore the possibility that at least some of them didn't want to and still held allegiance to their divine emperor back in the Land of the Rising Sun. Also, scare quotes are snide; if they were not volunteers who built the camp, what were they exactly?

*Response: The term "Japanese Americans" is generally accepted for the Issei (the first generation; immigrants from Japan who were prevented by law from naturalizing). And it would not be prudent to go into the details of the loyalty issue in the Manzanar article because then you open it up to all the other causes/reasons for the internment and its history. And that is already covered in Japanese American Internment. As for the possibility that some held allegiance to the Emperor, the fact is that sure, that's possible, but the numbers would be insignificant. After all, by the government's own findings, the Japanese American community, including the Issei, were extremely loyal to the US. The Issei even felt that the US was their country, not Japan. This is documented in several scholarly works, including at least one that is cited in the article. As such, I believe your criticism in this particular instance is misguided (once again, no offense intended).

As for the use of "volunteers," I think the use of the quotation marks is very much appropriate. After all, they were required to go to Manzanar. They didn't have a choice. As such, a number of single men decided to make the best of things for themselves and others by going early to help build the camp. The point is, yes, they volunteered to help build the camp, but when you come right down to it, they weren't REALLY volunteers, were they? -- Gmatsuda 07:20, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I doctored the part about citizenship slightly to remove the whiff of mystery. I think it's OK now. The NPS didn't have quotes around "volunteers", so I removed them. What those quotation marks meant was something like: "Certain people (white, racist, Japanese-hating people, in short, Americans) cynically decided to call them volunteers to conceal the ugly truth, but you and I know better, wink, nudge. They were forced to construct their own prison as slave labor." If that's what you mean to say, then say that and support it with references, otherwise the quotation marks constitute editorial comment and are out of place in an encyclopedia article. If you want to explain about the volunteers as you did above, that would be good, too. --Milkbreath 19:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The article says nothing about slave labor. You're reading too much into that. But yes, they were indeed called "volunteers" rather cynically. It's just like the government's use of "relocation center" as the official name of these camps...it was a euphemism intentionally used to sanitize and obscure what it really was. There was a conscious effort to do that in all aspects of the internment program. But to go into this further would be duplicative since we have the article on Japanese American Internment. I believe the quotation marks are fine, but I won't add them back myself. -- Gmatsuda 21:02, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

"Life": Was the golf course primitive and sub-standard? The beauty parlor, too? And isn't "sub-standard" subsumed in "primitive"? The reader feels he's being hit on the head with the redundant repetition, and he is.

*Response: I disagree about the redundancy. If anything, we went out of our way to avoid using of those terms more than once to describe the conditions. As for the amenities Manzanar had, they were built/developed/created by the prisoners themselves. They were not provided by the US Government. If the prisoners wanted or needed something, they generally had to do it themselves. They made their "home" more liveable, even though they still had tarpaper barracks, communal latrtines, no running water in the barracks, minimal heat...I could go on and on. -- Gmatsuda 07:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

"Closure": I can't think of a way to kick someone out that doesn't involve force of some kind. "Kicked out" is emotive and imprecise.

*Response: OK...how about "removed?" -- Gmatsuda 07:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

There are more. That said, this is an otherwise solid article that deserves a place in FA. --Milkbreath 12:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

*Response: If you could let me know the others, I'll take a look and respond. Thanks again for your efforts. -- Gmatsuda 07:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support This is a great article that has made steady progress through the involvement of many editors. Each of the serious concerns raised during this review has been addressed, and there are no outstanding issues that should prevent this article from being recognized as a featured article. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 15:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support I don't see any major problems with it anymore. Great job on a very detailed article! Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 04:05, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

*Response: Thank you to Will and Hong Qi for your contributions to the article! -- Gmatsuda 07:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support well done.Rlevse 21:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support Thorough and well-researched. A sound treatment of a politically and emotionally charged subject. Interesting and informative. --Milkbreath 22:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Rlevse and to Milkbreath for your support. Milkbreath also gets credit for some quality copyediting. -- Gmatsuda 23:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support Sumoeagle179 01:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

OK...so do we have consensus? Does the article get promoted now? :-) -- Gmatsuda 10:31, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The article is pretty well researched and the lead has gotten better than it was a week ago, but I'm inclined to oppose unless the usage of "prisoners"/"imprisoned" is either documented as common usage or replaced with "internee"/"interned". It's clearly legally incorrect, as prisoner implies an accusation of individual culpricy and the existence of legal proceedings, while internment is based on collective characteristics and usually absent legal proceedings. The "Terminology" section looks like it's squeezed in to justify the usage, but it does no such thing. As it is, it can't be considered the best we can do to keep an article NPOV. Also to repeat, while the brunt of the discussion between Adams and Lange should probably go in the Born Free and Equal article, to completely ignore two historical figures who significantly carried the public discourse on Manzanar during WWII is a grave oversight. ~ trialsanderrors 01:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I seem to have gotten tangled up in something here without wanting to, but I'm here now. And let me assure everybody that I have no agenda other than getting the article squared away; I came in cold to copyedit, period. I read the article many times in the course of copyediting, and the word "prisoner" didn't bother me a bit, and I'm pretty easily bothered. It seemed to me to be the plain word for the thing—a person living under guard behind barbed wire not free to leave. "Internee" sounds like someone carefully chose the word for some reason and therefore sounds more POV than "prisoner". My two cents. --Milkbreath 03:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I've seen the term "imprisoned" used in several scholarly works, and while "internee" and "interned" are commonly used, they are inaccurate, given the fact that although Manzanar mostly falls under the common definition of an internment camp, the fact is that "internee" generally refers to those who are not citizens by definition. At Manzanar, and the nine other camps, two-thirds of those imprisoned were native-born American citizens. Hence, the use of "internee" is misleading and inaccurate, despite the fact that it's commonly used. Also, the US Government operated separate camps at that time that were officially called "internment camps." Manzanar was not one of them. FYI: all of this is discussed in Japanese American Internment and is fully cited there. To be consistent, we had to find an alternative to "internee" that did not sanitize or downplay what these people were. Sure, they weren't constantly held behind lock and key in these camps. However, they were definitely held against their will and a case could be made for them being prisoners of war in their own country. This is how we decided on the use of "prisoner."

I disagree about requiring the inclusion in the prose of Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange. There are far more significant people in the history of Manzanar. While they documented the site like few others, they documented what happened at Manzanar. They were not among those who were directly involved in the history of the site. I am not saying this in an attempt to minimize their work, their contributions, etc. However, even the NPS doesn't have a portion of their exhibit at the Manzanar Interpretive Center detailing who they were and what they did. You only see their photos in some parts of the exhibit. What Adams and Lange contributed in terms of Manzanar should be detailed in their own articles. A wikilink in the See also section of the Manzanar article should suffice, IMHO. -- Gmatsuda 06:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I also disagree about the terminology section being a poor attempt (my interpretation of the comments by Trialsanderrors) at keeping the article NPOV. If you read the talk page archives, we went around and around and around to reach consensus on the terminology in question. It's not the ideal situation, but it gets the job done, IMHO. For me, I'd much rather use "concentration camp." But that has raised vehement protests from those who believe that term should be restricted only to references to the Nazi camps. IMHO, that's POV on their part, but in the spirit of coming up with something that works for everyone, we have what we have now. If this doesn't work for you, what do you propose? -- Gmatsuda 07:30, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.