On the orders of the Donald Trump administration, National Park Service employees hung two highly controversial signs this week at Manzanar National Historic Site, a museum examining the property’s former role as a prison where the U.S. government incarcerated more than 10,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
Displayed on a site where American citizens were held against their will for more than three years, the signs encourage visitors to report any depictions of U.S. history that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living” or fail to highlight the “beauty, abundance or grandeur” of the landscape, according to a Manzanar official.
Identical signs are now posted at every national park site across the nation, regardless of whether that site’s purpose is to educate the public about horrifying mistakes and grave injustices perpetrated by the U.S. government. Although it’s unclear how and where the president’s directive will be enforced, park advocates and historians are bracing themselves for a drastic reframing of the darkest chapters of the nation’s history…