"What's Manzanar?": Excavating Stories of Racism, of the Erased, and of Family.

This ethnographic study examines how secondary students’ participation in an archaeological dig at the Manzanar War Relocation Center—a World War II prison camp for Japanese Americans—shaped their understanding of Japanese American incarceration. Using Asian critical race theory (AsianCrit) and the concepts of (re)constructive history and story, theory, and praxis, the study found that students initially held dominant narratives justifying incarceration as wartime necessity, but exposure to Manzanar’s counternarratives highlighted racism and silenced histories often absent from school curricula. A focal student with family ties to incarceration illustrated how personal stories challenge official narratives, yet students of color expressed doubts about the impact of these counternarratives on their predominantly white peers upon returning to school. The research underscores the importance of integrating complex, truthful Asian American histories in education while recognizing the challenges of ideological border crossing between learning spaces and dominant societal narratives.