BARBARA BENISH

In 1941, 185 Japanese-American farmers were growing vegetables on 1900 acres of the Palo Verdes hills in Southern California. They had worked that land since at least 1920. By the spring of 1942, all were interred in “Relocation Centers” for the duration of the WWII. Before they left, (after being forced to forfeit their land leases to a rich Imperial Valley farmer), they planted their regular crops.

Fort MacArthur, out on the peninsula, was turned into a military base, where secret underground tunnels housed the Japanese-Americans on their way to the concentration camps of Manzania and Tule Lake in California. Eventually, the U.S. government forced over 120,000 people, including children, into these desolate camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed security men.

This installation, from 1990, was an ode to those families that were separated from the land they had called home, filled with seeds that grew the food to feed the population of California. The gallery, known as Angel's Gate, is located directly across from the former military base in San Pedro.