Comments on: Santa Anita: No internment camp

By: Gary Kovacic, Arcadia City Council

Gary Kovacic, Arcadia City Council — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:55:36 +0000

Scott: Thanks again for covering both the past and present of our great hometown of Arcadia. As always, you provide a valuable forum for discussion and reflection.

For those interested, in “Visions of Arcadia: A Centennial Anthology,” the book I edited for Arcadia’s Centennial in 2003, there are two first-hand accounts of the Santa Anita Assembly Center:

“Interned in Our Own Land” by Kiyome Hirayama (pages 23-24)

“Remembering the Santa Anita Assembly Center” by George Yoshinaga (pages 33-34)

And, yes, the book is still available at City Hall, the Arcadia Historical Museum, and Vroman’s Bookstore.

By: Visitor

Visitor — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:20:19 +0000

Those are interesting comments. I did some searching online and I found those pictures of the gun towers, also. I also found out the Santa Anita Race track was the largest assembly center! While it “technically” wasn’t an internment camp, people were “interned” for a period of time before going to their other internment camp.

I think people don’t want the stigma of saying they live in a city where that happened. And I’ll say that marker is pretty far off. Perhaps to honor the people who suffered there should be something a little more noticeable. I mean, they have a huge statue of Seabiscuit right there! Honor a horse, but not a people. Nice.

By: Visitor

Visitor — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:22:42 +0000

I think what you have said is good Scott, but a couple things are left out that if I don’t mention, history might forget. The Assembly Center could be viewed as a nicer wording for Internment Camp. As you said “only days, weeks or not more than a few months.” A few months? That sounds more like a camp for some.

Also, if this did not have the camp setup, then why are there still homes overlooking the race track that have gun mounts carved into the side of some of the trees? Again, starting to sound like imprisonment in a camp.

Also left out was the most prominent Internment Camp, being Manzanar IN California just 3.5 hours north of Arcadia.

I have lived in Arcadia my whole life and have seen so many changes. I hope people are not trying to tone down what happened at Santa Anita to try to brush away what happened and not show the severity of it. I also have pictures of the gun towers around the assembly area.
Thanks for bringing light to this issue.