Temporary Detention Centers
Euphemistically called “Assembly Centers,” Temporary Detention Centers provided makeshift housing for people of Japanese ancestry. The government’s stated deadline for completion of the Temporary Detention Centers was April 21, 1942, just two months after Executive Order 9066 announced the forced removal of people from their homes. Mainly hosted on fairgrounds or horse tracks to minimize construction needs, each center had guard towers, barbed wire fences, armed soldiers, and a total lack of privacy.
At the Portland Assembly Center, more than 3,800 prisoners lived in a livestock pavilion subdivided into apartments. Outside of Los Angeles, Santa Anita racetrack became the largest temporary camp with over 18,000 prisoners. At these and other centers, horses were removed just days before Japanese Americans’ arrival; the housing still reeked of manure. Toilets had no doors, which was shameful for many of the residents. After about three months, authorities transferred inmates to one of ten more remote long-term facilities.
The horse stalls we stayed in were meant for horses, not human beings.” - Fred Korematsu about his accommodations at the Tanforan Assembly Center
Families lived in barracks at Tanforan Assembly Center in buildings originally built to house horses. The Assembly Center was opened two days before the photograph was taken. The army painted the floors and walls of the stables, but the odor of horse urine and manure remained. Photo by Dorothea Lange, April 29, 1942, San Bruno, California.
Dressed in uniform marking service in the First World War, this veteran enters Santa Anita Assembly Center, one of the first stops for persons of Japanese ancestry forcibly removed from the West Coast. Clem Albers, April 5, 1942.
How would you feel if you were forced to leave home and didn’t know where you were being taken or how long you would be gone?
PARALLEL STORY
Today's Detention Centers
In 2017, a new U.S. policy began separating migrant families attempting to cross the U.S./Mexico border as part of a “zero tolerance” policy for all non-authorized entries (before this, families were generally detained together). While adults were imprisoned, accompanying children were shipped miles away to an Office of Refugee Resettlement shelter with no reunification process in place.
The government housed children in makeshift facilities – military bases, former warehouses, and tents – that lacked bedding, adequate medical care, and privacy. As with Japanese Americans during WWII, 28 perceived security threats led to the forced confinement of specific ethnic groups, often without due process.
In December 2023, a federal judge approved a settlement that prohibits U.S. officials from separating migrant families at the border.