FoundSF

Historical Essay

by curator Na Omi Judy Shintani, MA

Tanforan Incarceration 1942: Resilience Behind Barbed Wire

Tanforan horserace track reconfigured as the euphemistically labeled "Assembly Center" where Japanese-American U.S. citizens were gathered by the U.S. military in early 1942.

Photo: courtesy Special Collections, California State University, Fresno

Lines of newly incarcerated Japanese-Americans await assignment to temporary quarters in Tanforan horse stables in San Bruno, California.

Photo: Dorothea Lange, Library of Congress

This is the site of the 1942 Tanforan temporary detention center, where 8,000 people were imprisoned from April 28-October 13, 1942 due to their ethnicity. They were Bay Area children, parents, adults, and elders. Now a transit station and a shopping mall, Tanforan was the largest Northern California facility to incarcerate people of Japanese descent, 64% of whom were American citizens by birthright. Upon its closure most of the inmates were moved to Topaz concentration camp in Utah.

This exhibition honors and acknowledges these prisoners who lived in the repurposed Tanforan racetrack, commandeered for the temporary detention facility in early April 1942. Though the hastily whitewashed horse stables covered the horsehair and bugs on the walls, the indignity, stench, and filthiness could not be hidden.

Tanforan stables with residents and San Bruno Mountain behind in the distance.

Photo: BART exhibit, San Bruno Station

Even while surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, a bright spirit of resilience flourished among the prisoners. To create a sense of pride and normalcy, the inmates developed their own schools, library, newspaper, sports, and recreation activities. Imprisoned activists taught and made art, which in turn created solace and healing. Their artwork became powerful documentation and is displayed in the exhibition, along with expressions of incarceree descendants who strive to keep this history alive.

The Tanforan Totalizer, a resident-produced publication, 1942.

The current exhibition replaces an earlier display that memorialized the 70th anniversary of Tanforan. The revised presentation offers an expanded understanding of the 1942 Tanforan incarceration though personal stories, artist interpretations, and intergenerational experiences.

My desire is that the exhibition inspires dialogue about racial discrimination, identity, and civil liberties. Understanding the histories and traumas of the past can lead to equitable and humane treatment of all people. Please visit the Tanforan Memorial directly outside of the BART station, which includes the names of the 7,984 incarcerees and a statue of the Mochida sisters who were among those imprisoned at Tanforan.

More information on artists and historians who contributed to this important permanent installation can be found here.

At the western exit of the San Bruno BART station adjacent to the entry to Tanforan Mall.

Photos: Chris Carlsson