Plaque marks WWII internment

Staring out at sweet green grass and bright mustard flowers Saturday, Ted Yamashiro would not have known for sure he was in the right place except for the small canal running through a field.

An expanse of land at Broadway Road and Feather River Boulevard in Olivehurst was what the Penryn resident called home for two months in 1942. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, his family was assigned to the Arboga Assembly Center before being herded to Tulelake Internment Camp in Modoc County.

Almost seven decades later, Yamashiro, 86, and his cousin Ed Yamashiro, 77, stood again in Arboga as a plaque commemorating the Arboga Assembly Center's historical past was unveiled.

"It's nice to remember these things," said Ed Yamashiro. "We'd hate to see it happen again."

The Arboga Assembly Center was one of 12 gathering places where Japanese Americans were held before being shuttled to internment camps. Between May 8 and June 29, 1942, some 2,465 people, mostly from Sacramento and Placer counties, were held there.

The buildings are long since gone, but their stories are not forgotten.

Ed Yamashiro, who now lives in Lincoln, was a young boy when his family lived at Arboga, but he vividly remembers certain details about the mess hall, recreation areas and the barracks, where he shared a room with his family.

"We had partitions but no ceiling," he said. "You could hear everything that was happening on the other side of the walls."

Much of the center's history was unknown to locals until recently when Marysville resident Hatsuye Nakamura found an album her husband, Frank Nakamura, had compiled in the 1980s. It was filled with photographs, drawings and even an assembly camp newsletter — "The ArboGram" — that documented residents' lives during the 21⁄2-month period.

The site is now recognized as California State Historical Landmark No. 934. Several dozen Japanese Americans, area historians and community figures gathered in celebration for recognition, remembrance and a reunion of those who have shared their internment stories.

One day a large boulder will sit at the future Marysville Joint Unified School District site and hold the bronze plaque that tells the assembly center's history. In the meantime, the plaque, created with help from the Marysville chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League, will be showcased on a redwood stand at the Marysville Buddhist Church.

Yoshiro Tasaka, adviser for community affairs for the Consulate General of Japan, was impressed by the beauty of the community's recognition of discrimination toward Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

"If you think about 60 years ago, we are enemies, but now we are the strongest allies in the world," he said. "This will be a reminder of important history."