Merced Assembly Center
Merced Assembly Center
(Camp Merced)
The Merced Assembly Center/Merced County Fairgrounds - View From Above (from the National Archives)
Date Opened: May 6, 1942
Date Closed: September 15, 1942
Total Internees Incarcerated: 4669
Number of Buildings: 250
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This order was for the removal of the west coast residents of Japanese ancestry.
Operated by the Wartime Civil Control Administration, the Merced Assembly Center was the site where 4,669 persons of Japanese ancestry were imprisoned from May through September in 1942.
June 1942 Norman Satow in front of the Merced Assembly Center Barracks (courtesy of the Yamato Colony Commemorative Collection)
Research by Lindsay Davis in the old editions of the Merced Sun-Star revealed that the construction began on March 26, 1942. Working 24 hours a day in 12-hour shifts, it took 11 days to complete the construction of the barracks and community buildings. Over 1,000 men, including students from Merced High School, erected over 250 buildings. The work of the Merced community in the building of the assembly center was viewed as “wholehearted cooperation given the United States by the citizens and authorities of Merced County,” according to the Merced Sun-Star.
The Japanese Americans who were imprisoned at the Merced Assembly Center came from the local area, Merced, Livingston, Turlock and Cortez and from northern California communities, including Sebastopol, Yuba City, Yolo, Walnut Grove, Colusa, Winters, Modesto, Woodland, Santa Rosa, Chico, Marin, and Courtland. About 1000 of the prisoners were school-aged children.
1942 Kindergarten Class at the Merced Assembly Center (picture provided courtesy of the Kajioka Family)
The Merced Assembly Center detainees were shipped to desolate Granada, Colorado, where many stayed for up to three years in Amache, one of the 10 more permanent “relocation centers” built for the confinement of Japanese Americans during WWII.
While families were imprisoned, numerous young men enlisted or were drafted into the United States military, bravely serving their country while their families were behind barbed wire.
After the war, some families returned to unfriendly communities. Others scattered throughout the United States as a result of their confinement and loss of homes. After the war, in Livingston and other areas of Merced County, shots were fired at homes of the returning residents.
President Ronald Reagan signing House Resolution 442 on 8-10-1988 which formally apologized for the unconstitutional imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans (from the National Archives)
Over the years, the Japanese Americans became integral components of many communities. Finally, in 1988, the United States government formally apologized for the unconstitutional imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans and granted them redress.
It is hoped that the Merced Assembly Center memorial will help the community and future generations to remember its past and recognize the injustice to insure such deprivation of constitutional rights never occur again to any group of Americans.
Read A history of Japanese Americans in California: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II by the National Park Service.