Restoring Manzanar's Gardens and Orchards After Tropical Storm Hilary: Arborist Dave Goto

Dave Goto, arborist at Manzanar National Historic Site, received a Regional Cultural Resource Award for his work in 2023 restoring the historic Japanese gardens at Merritt Park and the Wilder Apple Orchard. The grandson of Japanese Americans incarcerated at Manzanar, he sees the work as a legacy: caring for the garden the incarcerees built and the fruit trees they tended, and setting up a tradition of care for future NPS stewards. As he puts it, the park portrays "a tough time in history," and he is there to show how the people held there "made their life better."

Dave Goto, arborist at Manzanar National Historic Site. NPS Photo/Jeff Burton.

Making a home in the desert

An arborist here has to understand both the plants and the history of the land they grow in. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942, leading to the incarceration of 110,000 Japanese Americans. The government set up ten "War Relocation Centers" in the West, and Manzanar, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in remote eastern California, was the first to open. Without due process, 11,070 Japanese American citizens and Japanese immigrants were imprisoned there during the war.

Behind barbed wire and eight guard towers, Manzanar had barracks, a mess hall, a recreation hall, laundries and bathrooms — and several orchards, including the Wilder Apple Orchard, left from the Owens Valley's early farming days. Over time the incarcerees made many gardens and even a park, to build a sense of home and community.

The orchards: in the early 1900s, Romeo Wilder planted pear, apple and peach trees on land that later became part of the camp. Farming didn't last: the City of Los Angeles bought up the land to protect a water source, the orchards dried up, and Manzanar's residents moved away — but the trees remained, now over 100 years old. Since 2006 the park has rehabilitated two pear orchards, and Goto has grafted and raised seedlings himself to preserve Manzanar's heirloom varieties.

Merritt Park had to be rebuilt from historical accounts, photographs and oral histories. Designed by a group of Japanese American landscape professionals held at Manzanar, the 1.5-acre park had two small ponds, a wooden teahouse over the water, roses and dozens of kinds of shrubs and flowers. Inspired by Japanese stroll gardens, it was a Japanese American cultural expression made from the materials at hand — a place for recreation, graduations and sweetheart photos.

His family's story

Goto grew up knowing his family had been held at Manzanar. Many spent a year and a half there before transfer to Topaz (Utah) or Poston (Arizona); one great-uncle was the camp's doctor. Only his grandfather escaped, moving to Wisconsin rather than be imprisoned.

Their memories differed. One great-aunt would curse whenever he raised it — the memories were "too soon and too bad." A great-uncle who was a child then remembered it as like summer camp, playing games all day and going from mess hall to mess hall — a sign of how hard incarcerees worked to give their children a sense of normal life.

Tropical Storm Hilary

By August 2023, Goto had finished over 90% of the Orchard Management Plan and was a couple of weeks from completing Merritt Park. Then Tropical Storm Hilary struck.

Merritt Park before and after Tropical Storm Hilary, August 2023, with feet of sediment in the pond. NPS Photos/Jeff Burton.

Over two days, Shepherd Creek broke its banks and flowed into Manzanar. It damaged roads, flooded four Japanese gardens including Merritt Park, damaged young trees Goto had raised, and washed away or buried several archeological sites. The water cut gullies through Merritt Park and the orchard, exposing the irrigation line he and volunteers had laid that summer, and filled the ponds with silt and debris. He found it disheartening to see the work buried in sand — but he doesn't dwell on things for long.

Storm damage in the Wilder Apple Orchard. NPS Photo/Jeff Burton.

He first thought the storm had set the work back at least six months. Then the park asked for help on social media, and the community rallied: Goto supervised 39 volunteers who spent nearly 1,000 hours digging out Merritt Park on weekends in October and November. By mid-November, the NPS announced the park unearthed and most repairs done. For Goto, the volunteers' effort showed how deeply people are connected to Manzanar — and it fuels him to do better every day.

Dave Goto with volunteers unearthing Merritt Park. NPS photo.

A place of quiet reflection

More than 40 years after Manzanar closed, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, acknowledging that "a grave injustice was done to both citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry" by their removal and detention during World War II. Manzanar National Historic Site, established in 1992, is a reminder of that mistake — and thanks to Goto, the NPS and many volunteers, its landscapes are places of quiet reflection.

Visit in the fall and you may find a box of fresh pears or apples in the visitor center. Goto shares the harvest with visitors, local non-profits and Tribes — enough, he jokes, to make people sick of pears — proof that the century-old trees still bear very good fruit. He sees the real payoff years ahead, when Merritt Park's plants leaf out and the orchard trees grow large. He is in it for the long haul.

Sources

Based on Anna Christie, "Growing a Legacy: Restoring Manzanar's Historic Landscapes After Tropical Storm Hilary," National Park Service, citing the park's Cultural Landscape Report (2006); a work of the United States government in the public domain. K. Uetsuzi's 1943 painting of Merritt Park, which the source reproduces and uses as its cover, is not shown here.