Merced Assembly Center
The Merced Assembly Center, located at in Merced, California, was one of sixteen temporary assembly centers hastily constructed in the wake of Executive Order 9066 to incarcerate those of Japanese ancestry beginning in the spring of 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor and prior to the construction of more permanent concentration camps to house those forcibly removed from the West Coast. The Merced Assembly Center was located at the Merced County Fairgrounds and operated for 133 days, from May 6, 1942 to September 15, 1942, with a peak population of 4,508. 4,669 Japanese Americans were ultimately incarcerated at the Merced Assembly Center.
Establishment of Merced Assembly Center
Political Climate and Executive Order 9066
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, anti-Asian prejudice rapidly began spreading through the West Coast, mainly affecting the state of California. This prejudice was not new, for it began spreading after Chinese immigration increased during the Gold Rush. At the time, Chinese people began working and began to be perceived as competition by White working-men. Once Japanese people began to immigrate, people started to put up anti-Asian propaganda. White-owned establishments had signs that stated that service would not be given to people of Asian descent. When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, most people were in shock, but Japanese-Americans had a feeling it would occur. In actuality, Japanese Americans began to be threatened about being placed in camps beginning in 1937. After the Alien Registration Act of 1940, the FBI made a list of potentially dangerous immigrants who were German, Italian, or Japanese. In November 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt received a secret letter from Curtis B. Munson, which stated that many Japanese-Americans were loyal to the United States, but the West Coast was vulnerable because some Japanese-Americans were still loyal to Japan. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, those considered dangerous by the FBI were arrested. The accounts that they had in American banks that were traced back to Japanese branches were frozen. The attack on Pearl Harbor caused many American citizens to feel afraid and anti-Asian prejudice increased. Therefore, communities began to grow afraid of those of Japanese descent. There were many reports of Asian Americans being harassed by others. Once Executive Order 9066 was issued, some Japanese-Americans fled to Mexico to escape detention camps. The Mexican government did not surrender any of their Japanese-American refugees to the United States.Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, fear spread regarding national security. In the state of California, the major worry was along the West Coast. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066. It ordered the immediate forced removal and detention of Japanese Americans, even though they were not directly mentioned within the executive order. As a result of Executive Order 9066, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced to relocate to temporary "assembly centers" primarily located within the Central Valley. A month after Executive Order 9066 was enacted, Public Law 503 was enacted, it allowed federal courts to enforce the orders from Executive Order 9066. Many Japanese Americans were not aware they would be confined, in some cases, for almost four years. The evacuees were not allowed to take a lot of their belongings with them, with only one duffel bag and two suitcases leaving the rest to be sold or stored. Due to everything happening so fast, everything was being sold at unfair prices and people were taking advantage of any items that the Japanese Americans were leaving behind.
Location of the Assembly Centers
The first phase entailed taking residents from their houses and putting them in military-controlled detention facilities nearby. After Japanese Americans started reporting to collection points near their homes, they were relocated to assembly centers. With a total of seventeen centers, many of them were in California but some were in Arizona, Washington, and Oregon. The locations of these centers in California were: Fresno, Owens Valley, Marysville, Merced, Pinedale, Pomona, Sacramento, Salinas, Santa Anita, Stockton, Tanforan, Tulare, and Turlock. The centers in Arizona were located at Mayer and Parker Darn. One of the centers was in Portland, Oregon. The final center was in Puyallup, Washington.The largest assembly center was in Santa Anita. Eleven of the assembly centers were at racetracks and fairgrounds. The others were: unsuitable facilities, migrant workers camps, abandoned corps, and a former mill site. The owners of eleven racetracks and fairgrounds signed leases with the government. The mess halls of the centers became potential breeding sites for epidemic outbreaks, compounding the health dangers of the unsanitary living quarters. All of them were staffed by inexperienced personnel who lacked basic hygiene and food-handling skills. The army was aware and concerned with the assembly centers: “Assembly Centers are not and cannot, without the expenditure of tremendous sums of money for space and facilities in duplication of those which will be provided on relocation sites, be designed to permit the development and maintenance of a vocational, educational, recreational and social program. Long residence in an assembly center is bound to have a demoralizing effect”.
Forced Relocation to Merced
The Western Defense Command put out 108 Civilian Exclusion Orders to forcibly relocate people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the West Coast. The purpose in doing this was to transfer them to temporary detention centers. Those closest to army areas were evacuated first and an effort was put in to send them to camps close to their homes. The first order went out on March 24, 1942 for 55 families closest to the attack on Pearl Harbor, who would eventually be sent to Manzanar and Minidoka internment camps. Those forcibly relocated to Merced came from mostly rural farming communities, including 1,600 people from Colusa County and Yolo County. Around 1,400 came from nearby regions of Modesto, Merced, and Turlock. 1,000 more came from northern coastal towns. Many owned land and while most were forced to sell or lost their property, but evacuees from Cortez, Cressey, and Livingston were part of collective farming organizations that ensured that they could keep their farms and homes.Amidst this chaotic process, civilians experienced anxiousness and excitement at the same time. The main order they had to follow was in regards to what they were allowed to bring, amongst vaccination and tag requirements. Families were only allowed to have what they could carry. They were required to have: bedding and linens, toiletries, clothing, dining utensils, and necessary personal hygiene products. Prior to being evacuated, civilians had to get their affairs in order, such as owned and rented properties. Due to the unknown duration of time of being away, most people lost leases and had to get rid of their homes and businesses. Few had the opportunity to store their belongings safely for recovery post liberation.
Dorothea Lange's Censored Images
This forced relocation process was documented by Dorothea Lange, an American photographer hired by the government to show how well the Japanese internees were being treated in the camps. While she was hired to do this job, 97% of her images were censored by the government and not seen until many years later. The existence of the images to the public today is mainly due to their transmission into the National Archives and their presence in the traveling exhibition, Executive Order 9066, by Richard Conrad, Lange’s assistant, and his wife. In order to justify the perception that the government wanted to show, Lange was told not to make sure barbed wire, watchtowers, and armed soldiers were not depicted in any of the images. To enforce this, she was constantly tracked and followed by members of the WRA. In addition, she was always trying to be caught in breeches of agreement by U.S Army Major Beasley who was never successful.Lange did not agree with the internment of Japanese people. By taking on this job, she hoped to show the truth of what these civilians were going through, which could ultimately help them. Despite her beliefs, captions of the images aligned with government language. It is believed that she did this to satisfy the federal government and the idea that this event in history was to protect Japanese civilians. She thought that the words would be censored as were her images. During this time, another photographer, Ansel Adams, was taking photographs of the Manzanar Internment Camp under his own direction. While Lange’s images were being censored, she urged him to release the truth through his photographs and create change. Adams declined to do this and only showed a “make the best of it” approach through his project.
Her images challenged the ideas that were being pushed that the Japanese were traitors. She showed their common experience through her specialty, portraits, as well as through landscape and close up shots, like of piles of luggage.