The Tanforan Assembly Center was created to temporarily detain nearly 8,000 Japanese Americans, mostly from the San Francisco Bay Area, under the auspices of Executive Order 9066. After the order was signed in February 1942, the Wartime Civil Control Administration acquired Tanforan Racetrack on April 4 for use as a temporary assembly center; plans called for the site to be used to accommodate up to 10,000 "evacuees" while permanent relocation sites were being prepared further inland. The Tanforan Assembly Center began operation in late April 1942, the first stop for thousands who were forced to relocate and undergo internment during World War II. The majority were U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry who were born in the United States. Tanforan Assembly Center was operated for slightly less than six months; most detainees at Tanforan were transferred to the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah, starting in September. The transfer to Topaz was completed by mid-October, and the site was turned over to the Army a few weeks later.
Statistics and administration
The people detained at Tanforan had previously lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, in the counties of San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Mateo; a small group was taken from San Joaquin County. Internees began arriving on April 28. The maximum population at Tanforan was 7,816 on July 25, 1942; Tanforan was the second-largest assembly center by population, but still held less than half the population at Santa Anita Assembly Center. The last detainees left the site on October 13. For comparison, the population of San Bruno was 6,519 in 1940, and the entire population of San Mateo County that year was 111,782. There were approximately 1,600 children detained at Tanforan, of which 110 were under one year old.
According to the Final Report authored by John L. DeWitt, the cost of constructing the detention facilities at Tanforan was . Frank L. Davis served as the director of Tanforan Assembly Center, overseeing five departments (Administration, Works and Maintenance, Finance and Records, Mess and Lodging, and Service). Davis previously was the assistant state director of the Works Progress Administration and was named director in March. An internal report was critical of each division in turn: the Administrative Division was responsible for "thoroughly censoring" the newspaper and "every other activity of the residents"; Supply, reporting to the Administrative Division, was "often charged with favoritism and 'graft; Works and Maintenance was "for a long time one of the most inefficient groups" until it was reorganized with a Japanese foreman; Mess and Lodging had included one person who had failed to order adequate rations for May and June; and Service "was entirely disorganized" in relation to detainee employment.
Within the Assembly Center, detainees were organized into blocks with a single House Manager. These were detainees appointed to help the Caucasian administrators by representing their groups of five to ten barracks or a single stall building; their primary responsibilities were to relay complaints from and order supplies for their residents. The internal police were tasked with searching people and baggage during induction to ensure that no contraband items were being smuggled and maintaining the safety of the detainees. Initially, the force consisted mainly of young detained men who failed to impress: "[They] took advantage of their position to eat wherever they chose and to get into any place that they wanted. They did not patrol the beats as they were supposed to for it was very cold and their friends along the way were always available for bull sessions." They were replaced by 13 Caucasian patrolmen, supplemented by Japanese-American quarantine officers, messenger boys, and guides.
Life in Tanforan
The assembly centers were temporary detention facilities at sites selected to allow the federal government to remove Japanese-Americans from the West Coast as quickly as possible while allowing time for more permanent relocation centers to be built in the interior. Racetracks and fairgrounds were chosen, as they typically had on-site utilities, spacious grounds, and facilities that could be adapted for housing thousands of people. Sites "close to home" were chosen so that detainees could settle last-minute financial matters, minimize travel distances, and grow acclimated to group living.