Although to date, no one has done any archaeology to my knowledge, California
State Parks will soon acquire U.S. Army Fort Lockett. This was the last post
of the famous "Buffalo Soldiers," an African American cavalry post during
World War II. A portion of that came included the interment area for Italian
prisoners-of-war. The word around the community of Campo, California, U.S.A. is
that both the Italians and African Americans were treated quite well by the local
ranch families. Many of the Italians were allowed to work in local ranches
and at least one had a job in Tecate, Mexico that led to marriage and a new life
after World War II. California State Parks has an excellent archaeology
program and no doubt will conduct archaeology excavations at Camp Lockett in the
future. At some future time, we can expect to hear from them on the archaeology
of tolerance, or not (if it proves to be untrue).

Speaking of the not, I am pretty certain archaeological work has been done at
Manzanar, California. That was the Japanese interrment camp where Japanese
Americans were imprisoned during World War II. A horrible affair, the vast
majority of those people were locked up simply because their grandparents or
further generations back were Japanese. Anyone who spoke Japanese was included,
their lands and property seized, and they were shipped by bus out to this remote
desert site for the duration of the war. Now that study ought to be interesting
with regard to intolerance.

Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.