Cover Page

Table of Contents

Abstract

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Essay

Brief History

Gila River

Granada

Heart Mountain

Jerome

Manzanar

Minidoka

Poston

Rohwer

Topaz

Tule Lake

Isolation Centers

Add'l Facilities

Assembly Centers

DoJ and US Army Facilities

Prisons

References

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites by J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord, and R. Lord

Chapter 16 (continued)
Assembly Centers

Salinas Assembly Center, California

Occupied from April 27 to July 4, the Salinas Assembly Center was built at a fairgrounds at the north end of the town of Salinas. It housed a total of 3,608 evacuees from the Monterey Bay area. The maximum population at one time was 3,594. Over 165 buildings are depicted in the aerial photograph, which shows barracks to the north and east of the fairgrounds proper, six buildings within the racetrack infield, and perimeter guard towers (Figures 16.41 and 16.42).

Figure 16.41. Oblique aerial view of the Salinas Assembly Center. (from DeWitt 1943)

Figure 16.42. Salinas Assembly Center. (Clem Albers photograph, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley)

The fairgrounds now encompasses the California Rodeo Grounds, a small neighborhood park (Sherwood Park), and the Salinas Community Center. The grandstand and auxiliary buildings present in the 1942 aerial photograph remain, but the main area of assembly center barracks is now a golf course. In the rear courtyard of the Salinas Community Center there is a State of California historical marker commemorating the assembly center and a small fenced Japanese garden (Figures 16.43 and 16.44). Another historical marker indicates that the assembly center was later used to train a Filipino army unit during World War II. The courtyard is perhaps most known for its cowboy hat sculpture "Hat in Three Stages of Landing" (Figure 16.45).

Figure 16.43. Historical marker at the site of the Salinas Assembly Center.

Figure 16.44. Japanese garden in the courtyard of the Salinas Community Center.

Figure 16.45. Two of the "Three Hats" in the courtyard of the Salinas Community Center.

Continued

Last Modified: Fri, Sep 1 2000 07:08:48 pm PDT
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