Editing Arcadia, California (section)

===Santa Anita Assembly Center===
{{further|Internment of Japanese Americans}}
The Santa Anita Assembly Center site is [[California Historical Landmarks in Los Angeles County, California|California Historical Landmark #934]]. In 1942 during [[World War II]], the racetrack grounds were used as a processing and holding site for [[Japanese Americans]] who had been removed from their homes and communities for forced relocation and [[Internment of Japanese Americans|internment]] under President Franklin Roosevelt's [[Executive Order 9066]]. The Civilian Assembly Center at the racetrack became the largest and longest operating one of the eighteen, holding citizens until the [[Internment of Japanese Americans#List of camps|Relocation Center camp]]s were completed in interior areas of California and other states.<ref name=militarymuseum>{{cite web|url=http://www.militarymuseum.org/CpSantaAnita.html|title=Santa Anita Ordnance Training Center|work=California Military Department|department=Military History and Museums Program|access-date=June 3, 2015}}</ref> More than 18,000 persons resided at the racetrack in primitive conditions.<ref name=militarymuseum/><ref>[http://www.ci.arcadia.ca.us/home/index.asp?page=1565 Arcadia City Library: "Santa Anita PACEMAKER"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923203209/http://www.ci.arcadia.ca.us/home/index.asp?page=1565 |date=September 23, 2015 }}; Homepage for 32 digitalized editions of the Santa Anita Assembly Center newspaper. (accessed November 7, 2014).</ref> Four hundred temporary tarpaper barracks were constructed on the racetrack grounds to house many of the detainees, where they lived three families per unit. 8,500 detainees lived in converted horse stalls.<ref name=militarymuseum/> Bachelors were housed in the grandstand building.<ref name=militarymuseum/> They had group showers, non-private bathrooms, and 24-hour armed surveillance. Each resident was given an "Army manufacture bed, one blanket and one straw tick."<ref>McAdam, Pat and Snider, Sandy.  ''Arcadia: Where Ranch and City Meet'', p.&nbsp;147</ref> The Assembly Center held people from late March through the end of October 1942, when the internees were relocated inland to [[Internment of Japanese Americans#Relocation Centers|permanent internment camps]] at [[Manzanar]] and [[Tule Lake Unit, World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument|Tule Lake]] in California, and eight others in Western states and Arkansas.

In November 1942 the center was turned over to the [[United States Army Ordnance Corps]] for training purposes and was officially renamed [[Camp Santa Anita]].<ref name=militarymuseum/> Later in the war it served as a [[prisoner of war|prisoner of war—POW]] camp, holding several thousand of Rommel's German [[Afrika Korps]] soldiers.<ref name=militarymuseum/>