Marysville
The Marysville Assembly Center was located at a migrant workers’ camp about eight miles south of Marysville. It was also known as the Arboga Assembly Center after the nearby small community of the same name. Occupied from May 8 to June 29, the assembly center housed a total of 2,465 evacuees (2,451 maximum at a time) from Placer and Sacramento counties.[1]
Marysville was honored to have three Protestant ministers who cared for the residents until they relocated to centers around the country. The church organized a Sunday school with a Japanese service in the morning and an English (young people’s) service in the evening.
Sacramento
Rev. Isamu Nakamura recalled his experience in the Sacramento Assembly Center (more commonly known as Walerga): “In the Assembly Centers buildings were temporary and similar to [army] barracks. . . . The dividing walls were only up to eight feet high and the upper part of each room was left open full length of the barracks, so any noise or sound from the next room was easily heard.”[2] He then commented on how the uncertainty of the times increased spiritual fervor:
The general feeling of evacuees in the Assembly Center was that everyone seemed to be tense and alert, not knowing what to expect next. One thing I noted was the feeling of unity with many Japanese concentrated in one place. When we held Sunday service, the attendance was tremendous with many non-Christians among them. On the contrary, after we moved to the Relocation Center at Tule Lake, the attendance began to decrease gradually because they felt relaxed and contented knowing they were secure and settled at least for the duration of the war.”[3]
The church in the Sacramento Assembly Center organized morning Sunday school and worship services in both English and Japanese. They were able to bring in many outstanding speakers due to the help of the Sacramento Church Council. The young people also sponsored an evening fellowship group and singspirations.[4] As in the other camps, Christians sought comfort in the gathering of the church.
Stockton
The Stockton Assembly Center at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds consisted of a converted racetrack and vacated horse barns. As in the other camps, internees were afforded very little privacy. Ruby Hayashi remembered,
Five of us were squeezed into a room measuring twenty feet by twenty-five feet with no partitions, so I made a makeshift partition with a piece of muslin cloth and rope for some privacy. The next-door people were a bunch of issei bachelors who smoked a lot, and the smoke would seep into our room. We had to speak in low tones, because the walls were thin and we could hear everything said by the neighbors. The tarpaper buildings were so hot in the summer with no air conditioning that it’s a wonder we endured it. Moreover, the bathrooms were not completed, and the toilet stalls had no doors. My outspoken sister-in-law went to the project director and complained, “What do you think we are—animals?”[5]
The Revs. Shokichi Hata (Presbyterian), Yoshimatsu Oyama (Methodist), and Adjutant Takemaru Hirahara of the Salvation Army shepherded the Japanese-speaking church. “For the English-speaking and young people, Reverend Hubert Kuyper, a returned missionary from Japan, was very instrumental. . . . He made frequent trips to the center . . . to minister to the needs of the evacuees.”[6] The Stockton internees also received assistance from the College of the Pacific (now UOP), the YMCA, and many nearby churches. Of particular note were the Humbargar sisters. Catherine had taught mathematics while Elizabeth taught English and served as faculty adviser of the 400-member Japanese American student club at Stockton High. During the internment, they sought out college students who would be willing to teach classes at the assembly center, then loaded up a horse trailer with books and other materials, driving past hecklers and ignoring the taunts of protestors. Part of their daily routine, after teaching their regular classes, was to visit the Stockton Assembly Center and encourage their students detained there. They taught for two hours each day in a converted cow barn with sawhorses covered with butcher paper to serve as desks. Their students would soon be transferred to various relocation centers, but the two sisters would eventually provide over 500 students with recommendation letters for either work or college. Christian examples such as these helped to bolster the church’s faith in God and in the kindness of others.[7]
Turlock
The Turlock Assembly Center was accommodated by the Stanislaus County Fairgrounds:
Upon arriving at the Turlock Assembly Center, inmates were required to wait in line while their luggage was searched for contraband items. Children arriving at the center had identification tags affixed to their clothing. Once the baggage claim and search process was complete, individuals were allowed to view their newly assigned homes. The barracks were of bare and simple construction and were put together hastily. Some detainees were required to sleep in barracks that were once horse stalls. Living quarters in Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) camps were typically very bare and consisted of cots, blankets, mattresses made from straw filled sacks, and had a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.[8]
To make matters worse, there was not enough room for all the residents.
“Laundry fluttered over half the Turlock assembly center today, as busy Japanese women settled down to apartment-keeping,” reported the Turlock Daily Journal on May 4, 1942. . . . [A]lmost twice the number of expected Japanese Americans came to the center during its first day of operation. By the fifth day there were over 2,000 Japanese Americans at the center – some from as far away as Los Angeles County. Turlock residents and civic groups volunteered to process more than 1,250,000 pounds of luggage belonging to the forced evacuees.[9]
Rev. Joichi “George” Yahiro was the only Protestant minister at Turlock, but visiting Caucasian ministers such as Frank Herron Smith and Gordon K. Chapman lent their assistance. The church also organized a Sunday school followed by the English and Japanese services which met simultaneously in separate locations. On Sunday night, they held an adult evening service in the outdoor pavilion and a young people’s vesper service.[10] In the midst of such dramatic upheaval, residents turned to the familiarity of weekly church life.
Merced
The Merced Assembly Center in the San Joaquin Valley was also situated on the site of the county fairgrounds. The austere conditions caused tremendous physical suffering. “During this time,” Kiyo Hirano recalled, “the weak, the elderly, and the sick died one after the other. The flag flying half-mast in front of the office meant that once again someone had passed away that day.”[11] Each death was another tragic reminder of this American injustice.
Despite the discomfort of the heat and poor facilities, however, the worship services, prayer meetings, and Bible studies were well-attended. The two Protestant ministers, Revs. Masao Hirata (Presbyterian) and Iwakichi Haratani (Methodist), cared for the flock through pastoral visitations, personal counseling, and memorial services: “The ministry involved much pastoral calling on foot, mainly trying to advise people to keep a steady nerve and inviting not only church people but many others who lived in the same blocks but who had very little contact with any church.”[12] In addition to Sunday services, the Merced church also held Wednesday night prayer meetings and Friday night young people’s meetings. Many internees had never seen so many Japanese people congregated in one place. Sherman Kishi, for example, hailed from Livingston, which at the time was home to only thirty or forty Nikkei. So when he arrived at Merced, Kishi laughed, “Most of us had never seen so many other Japanese people in our lives.” His sister, Mayme, led the Christian Church choir as she would later do in the Granada Relocation Center as well.[13] The unique experience of worshiping with fellow Nikkei strengthened their belief that they were not alone.
[1] National Park Service History, “Historic California Posts, Camps Stations and Airfields: Marysville Assembly Center (Arboga Assembly Center)” (2000), accessed at http://www.militarymuseum.org/MarysvilleAssyCtr.html.
[2] Laing, et. al., Issei Christians, 173.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Suzuki, Ministry, 76-77.
[5] Ruby Hayashi, “Memories of the Evacuation,” in Triumphs, 25.
[6] Suzuki, Ministry, 78.
[7] See Sugimura, Quiet Heroes, 122. In 1978, the Humbargar sisters received the “Fourth Order of the Sacred Treasure” as friends of Japan.
[8] Weglyn, Years of Infamy, 80.
[9] Angelina Martin, “75 Years Later: A Look Back at the Turlock Assembly Center,” Turlock Journal, accessed at https://www.turlockjournal.com/news/local/75-years-later-a-look-back-at-the-turlock-assembly-center.
[10] Suzuki, Ministry, 67-68.
[11] Kiyo Hirano, Enemy Alien (San Francisco, CA: JAM Publications, 1983), 8.
[12] Suzuki, Ministry, 85.
[13] Lester E. Suzuki, “The Churches and Relocation Center Experience,” in Koga, A Centennial Legacy, 41.
