Santa Anita Assembly Center

Santa Anita Assembly Center

The Santa Anita Assembly Center was a temporary detention site established in 1942 at the Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia, California for the mass removal and incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast following Executive Order 9066. The site combined existing equestrian and commercial facilities with hastily constructed housing and security administered by the War Relocation Authority and the United States Army. It became one of the largest and most visible assembly centers, affecting families from Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Bernardino County.

History and construction

Selected under emergency wartime directives after Attack on Pearl Harbor and issuance of Executive Order 9066 by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the site converted the Santa Anita Racetrack complex into an assembly center over weeks in early 1942. The Racing Association of Southern California and track management coordinated with Civilian Conservation Corps-era infrastructure and United States Army Corps of Engineers teams to adapt grandstands, barns, parking lots, and stables into living quarters, mess halls, and security perimeters. Local officials in Los Angeles County and state agencies facilitated rapid construction of tarpaper barracks, latrines, and utility hookups, while labor came from civilian contractors and military engineers. The conversion reflected federal plans first developed by the War Relocation Authority leadership under director Milton S. Eisenhower and temporary site oversight by Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt-era commands.

Role during World War II and Japanese American incarceration

As part of a national program that included sites such as Manzanar, Tule Lake Segregation Center, Gila River War Relocation Center, and Poston War Relocation Center, the assembly center served as an initial processing point before transfers to inland WRA camps. It processed evacuees from Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Long Beach, Pasadena, Inglewood, and other coastal communities. The Army and WRA implemented policies echoing directives from War Department headquarters and wartime civilian agencies, coordinating identification, registration, and transportation to centers like Rohwer and Jerome, or to Heart Mountain and Topaz. The center’s operation intersected with actions by federal institutions such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and regional Civil Liberties Act (context) debates that later culminated in postwar redress efforts including the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.

Facilities and layout

The racetrack’s grandstand and clubhouse became administrative centers, while parking lots and infield spaces were filled with temporary barracks, mess halls, and latrines. Existing structures—stables, paddocks, and the track’s concession buildings—were repurposed for storage, kitchens, and workshops. Security arrangements included fences, guard towers, and gates under the auspices of the United States Army and local military police, supplemented by civilian WRA staff. Sites for religious observance, such as converted rooms for Buddhist services and Christian congregations, were established alongside communal kitchens. Nearby infrastructure in Arcadia and adjacent San Gabriel Valley municipalities provided railway access via Santa Fe Railway connections for onward transport to inland camps.

Life and conditions inside the assembly center

Daily life combined adaptation to cramped, communal living with attempts to preserve cultural and family routines. Residents organized schools, newspapers, amateur theater, sports leagues, and Buddhist and Christian religious services; community leaders from neighborhoods such as Little Tokyo (Los Angeles) and Gardena helped establish civic committees. Overcrowding in tarpaper barracks, inadequate insulation, shared latrines, limited privacy, and constrained economic opportunities produced stress and health concerns, leading some to seek medical care from nearby County hospitals and clinic services coordinated with WRA medical staff. Tensions arose around loyalty questionnaire requirements linked to the Department of Justice and Selective Service System policies; responses affected transfers to segregation centers such as Tule Lake. Cultural life persisted through music, traditional crafts, youth groups, and sports contests modeled after American Legion and local high school activities. Photographers and journalists from publications in Los Angeles documented scenes that later informed historical exhibits at institutions such as the Japanese American National Museum.

Aftermath, repurposing, and legacy

After several months the assembly center closed as residents were relocated to inland WRA camps; the racetrack returned to racing and broader commercial use, including hosting Hollywood film shoots and public events. Postwar, the site’s wartime role was the subject of legal, historical, and reparative discussion involving advocates linked to groups such as the Japanese American Citizens League, scholars from University of California, Los Angeles and Stanford University, and federal redress processes culminating in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Monuments, plaques, and oral history projects in Los Angeles County and at the Santa Anita Park precinct preserve memory; advocacy by community leaders from Little Tokyo (Los Angeles) and national organizations has influenced curricula at institutions like California State University, Los Angeles and exhibition programs at the Japanese American National Museum. Contemporary scholarship situates the site within broader studies of wartime policy, civil rights litigation such as Korematsu v. United States, and storytelling by survivors whose archives are held at repositories including the Densho Digital Repository and university special collections.

Category:Internment of Japanese Americans Category:Arcadia, California Category:World War II civilian internment facilities in the United States