Tanforan Assembly Center remembered

The Japanese faced discrimination, and were often confused with Chinese, and there had been an historic anti-Chinese bias in the Bay Area. The Japanese adopted western dress and customs and seemed to be assimilating successfully into the local culture.

The attack on Pearl Harbor and December 7, 1941 changed everything. Executive Order 9066 eventually called for all persons of Japanese descent in the west coastal states and Arizona to be placed in internment camps.

Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno was hastily converted to the Tanforan Assembly Center in April 1942. It became the first stop for many of the Japanese internees, including our local families. In all, 7,816 people passed through here. It became the second largest assembly center after Santa Anita in Southern California.

Housing was to provide a space of ten by twenty feet per couple, but in practice it worked out to be much more crowded. At Tanforan, there were some new barracks constructed, but the horse stables were also used as housing in the nine by twenty foot stalls. Eventually, the grandstands were used as makeshift dormitories for about 500 single men.

The horse stalls had previously held a horse in one half and tack and fodder in the other half. In this space designed for one prized horse, five adults would sometimes live. The stalls had been whitewashed in an attempt to make them habitable, but cleaning prior to the painting had been hurried. Hay, horsehair and excrement were embedded in the paint. In addition, manure had seeped through the floorboards over the years, and now formed a layer on the ground under the buildings. Adding warm water in an attempt to clean up only made the odor worse.

The hastily constructed barracks, while lacking the reminders of the horses, had other problems. Green wood used in the construction gradually shrunk, leaving gaps that let in wind and rain. Also, the partitions were only partial, so there was no privacy between the family groups housed inside them. Cots, blankets, pillows and mattresses were to be provided for the detainees, but in many cases they were given only the cots and empty canvas bags for mattresses. They were told to go to the haystacks and fill the bags for their mattresses.

At first the communal facilities were not yet completed, so the only toilets were in the grandstands. One had to allow time for walking the distance and standing in line before using the bathroom. One can only imagine today the dehumanizing effect that these deplorable conditions created. Tanforan, as an Assembly Center, was only a way station, however.

It operated for about six months as a stop for people before they were placed in permanent confinement camps. The detainees were transferred to Topaz, the Central Utah Relocation Center. The last of the Japanese left Tanforan Assembly Center on October 13, 1942. The newly renovated shopping center at Tanforan displays a plaque in recognition of this era.

Rediscovering the Peninsula appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal. For more information on this or related topics, visit the San Mateo County History Museum, 750 Middlefield, Redwood City.<