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| Landmark #934-10 | Tulare County | Visited: February 16, 2013 | Plaque? NO. 🙁 |
| What is it? | Nothing commemorates this site at the Tulare County Fairgrounds! |
| What makes it historical? | THE GUIDE SAYS: The temporary detention camps (also known as “assembly centers”) represent the first phase of the mass incarceration of 97,785 Californians of Japanese ancestry during World War II. Pursuant to Executive Order 9066 signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, thirteen makeshift detention facilities were constructed at various California racetracks, fairgrounds, and labor camps. These facilities were intended to confine Japanese Americans until more permanent concentration camps, such as those at Manzanar and Tule Lake in California, could be built in isolated areas of the country. Beginning on March 30, 1942, all native-born Americans and long-time legal residents of Japanese ancestry living in California were ordered to surrender themselves for detention.
OTHER TIDBITS: About 4,800 second-generation Japanese-Americans passed through here between April 27 and May 14, 1942 on their way to Gila River Internment Camp in southern Arizona! Though this assembly center did actually provide mattresses for all of the inmates, they were still subjected to cramped quarters, poor rations, and prison-level wages! After the captives were shipped off to Gila River between August 20 and September 16th, this became a training center for the VII Army Corps. |
| How can I Help the Helpers? | HERE’S HOW:
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| Where is this place? | LISTED DIRECTIONS: Tulare County Fairgrounds Tulare, CA 93274 ANNOTATIONS: From Los Angeles: ~179mi (289km) — 3hrs |
| When should I go? | Check their website to see if the fairgrounds are open! |
I lived in Visalia from mid-1981until Jan. 1994 and not once did I hear a word about an Assembly Center being mere miles away. I worked with native Tulare and Kings County residents who were 10 to 15 years older than me. I was born in late 1944, so many of those people must have known about the center, but nary a word. Ya think they could have said something, maybe? I’m a little angry because I have visited Manzanar and Tule Lake many times and always get sad when I think of the Japanese I knew while growing up in Los Angeles after the war, and later the Japanese I knew in Hawaii while stationed there, but I never visited the Tulare Assembly Center, BECAUSE I DID NOT KNOW IT EXISTED. In 1994 we moved to San Antonio and I got a job that required me to travel approximately 120 miles North, East, South, and Southwest from San Antone. I found Crystal City. Mainly it was a camp for German Families (including citizens) where the father was pro-German or an outright Hitler supporter. Then the POWs from Italy, I think of them as lover boys who made wine and made music with their violins and squeeze boxes. Finally the Japanese families showed up. Okay, I’m done, but I am not happy I missed Tulare.
Hi Jim! Thanks for sharing your story. I was also super surprised how widespread the Japanese internment program was, and I’m glad the California landmarks program has made a point of recognizing the preserving these places. Do you think you’ll ever return to Tulare County just to visit this site?