Pinedale Assembly Center Memorial in Fresno commemorates World War II internment
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Summary
The Pinedale Assembly Center Memorial in Fresno remembers Japanese Americans confined at a temporary detention site after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942. The memorial, dedicated in 2009, includes a fountain, a historic marker and 11 storyboards recounting the Pinedale site's history.
The Pinedale Assembly Center Memorial in Fresno commemorates people of Japanese ancestry who were detained at a temporary assembly center after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942.
The site, located on the former grounds of the Sugar Pine Lumber Mill on Alluvial Avenue about 1 mile west of Blackstone, served as a temporary holding facility for people from Sacramento and Amador counties in California as well as evacuees from Oregon and Washington. The assembly center operated from May to July 1942 and housed roughly 4,800 people during that period.
Why it matters: The memorial documents a period in which the U.S. government forcibly removed and incarcerated tens of thousands of Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II. The Pinedale memorial — which includes a fountain, a historic marker and 11 storyboards — is one local site that records that history and the experiences of those confined there.
The memorial’s groundbreaking took place on Feb. 19, 2007, the 65th anniversary of Executive Order 9066. It was dedicated on Feb. 17, 2009, and acknowledges the roughly 4,800 people confined at Pinedale between May and July 1942. The site’s displays recount life at the assembly center and place the local experience within the broader wartime removals ordered under Executive Order 9066.
The record of the Pinedale Assembly Center links local geography to a national policy: the wartime removals affected a far larger population beyond Fresno. Contemporary accounts commonly report that roughly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were removed from the West Coast under the order; the Pinedale memorial focuses on the local contingent confined at that temporary site.
The memorial’s storyboards and marker are intended to preserve accounts of daily life and the conditions at the assembly center. The plaques and displays do not take policy positions; they present historical information about who was held at the site, where they came from and the timeline of the assembly center’s operation.
The memorial remains a local point of historical record and community memory, recording dates, numbers and locations tied to the Pinedale Assembly Center and linking that site to the larger history of wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans.
