During World War II- the Los Angeles County fairgrounds, located in Pomona- were utilized by the federal, state, and local governments as a Temporary Assembly Center for Japanese-American individuals and families, as well as a Ordinance Depot.

Origins of Japanese-American Discrimination (Late 1941):

Following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, anti-Japanese sentiment escalated to new heights within the United States. As a consequence, many Japanese-Americans suffered from ethno-racial discrimination. These prejudices grew to affect many aspects of Japanese-American daily life activities. Ultimately, the sentiments culminated into a widespread movement against the targeted group, and many Japanese-Americans faced prospects of forced removal from their homes along the Pacific coast.

Development of the Pomona Temporary Assembly Center (March-April 1942):

These fearful prospects soon became reality. On March 5, 1942, Governor Culbert Olson canceled California’s eighty-eighth state fair, instead choosing to “lease…the fairgrounds to the [federal] government for ‘uninterrupted and continuous’ use during the war emergency.”[1] Similarly, this lease to the federal government also applied to other fairgrounds throughout California, including the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona. Governor Olson therefore remarked that the other locations and “the Los Angeles County Fair at Pomona . . . [were] probably ‘in the same boat.’”[2] As revealed by Olson’s small comment in March 1942, the Pomona fairgrounds were possibly already being set aside as a temporary detention center for Japanese-Americans.  Just one month later, military authorities designated the Los Angeles County fairgrounds in Pomona as an assembly center; Japanese-Americans would be assigned to the Pomona fairgrounds while they waited for transfer to another, more permanent, destination.

Japanese-American Evacuation, & Life at the Assembly Center (May 1942):

Newspaper accounts documented a flurry of activity in May 1942. On May 6, 1942 Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, Chief of the Western Defense Command in San Francisco, gave evacuation orders to 2,370 Japanese-Americans in two areas belonging to the greater Los Angeles region. He gave the representatives of each individual family unit just two days – Wednesday and Thursday – to register for internment, for the evacuation would begin on “Friday and…be completed by Monday noon.”[3] Their lives uprooted, the 2,370 Japanese-Americans filled the Pomona assembly center- holding 420 prefabricated houses, 8 mess halls, post-office, church, hospital, library, and storage warehouses.[4] According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, these evacuations were vital to “clear Pacific military zones of potential saboteurs and fifth columnists.”[5]

One of the detainees of the Pomona Assembly Center was May Horiuchi, a 15-year-old Japanese student from Hollywood High School.[6] He and other Japanese evacuees observed the “I am an American Day” on May 17, 1942, despite the injustices taken against them. Horiuchi noted that “in [the] celebration, citizens of every race [took] part but…the Niseis, in the various scattered centers” stood “apart.”[7] Even after their separation, the Japanese-Americans identified as Americans, and believed themselves to be part of American society.

Pomona Ordinance Depot (1944):

By 1944, the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds housed the Pomona Ordinance Depot; it was no longer a detention facility for Japanese-Americans. As a result, local newspapers investigated and wrote on the daily lives of workers at the Ordinance Depot, rather than the daily lives of the Japanese-Americans. The San Bernardino Sun, therefore, reported that Sergeant Bob Rishel’s wife, Betty Rishel, won a fifty-dollar war bond from Kay Kyser's program, that Mrs. Sunny Mifflin's son- a third-class radioman in the Navy- was due home after two years of service in the South Pacific and that Sergeant Alexander Anderson threw a farewell party for his coworkers and friends prior to his transfer to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio.[8]

Utilized as both a Temporary Assembly Center and an Ordinance Depot throughout the course of World War II, the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds at Pomona played an integral role in many diverse, civilian lives on the home front.

[1] “State Fair is Canceled,” San Bernardino Sun, March 5, 1942.

[2] “State Fair is Canceled,” San Bernardino Sun, March 5, 1942.

[3] “Japs Will Go to Pomona Fairgrounds Camp: More Aliens Told to Move New Evacuation Orders Will Take Half of Nipponese From Coast,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1942.

[4] “Japs Will Go to Pomona Fairgrounds Camp: More Aliens Told to Move New Evacuation Orders Will Take Half of Nipponese From Coast,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1942.

[5] “Evacuee Total of Japs From Coast 65,000,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, May 10, 1942.

[6] May Horiuchi, “I Am an American,” Pomona Center News, May 23,1942, Special Collections in Pomona Public Library.

[7] May Horiuchi, “I Am an American,” Pomona Center News, May 23,1942, Special Collections in Pomona Public Library.

[8] “Personal News About Vast Army of Air Field Workers,” San Bernardino Sun, May 23, 1944.