The Puyallup Assembly Center, better known by the euphemism Camp Harmony, a name coinedby an Army public-relations officer during construction in 1942, was situated at the WesternWashington fairgrounds in the heart of Puyallup, located in Pierce County. The assembly

center was a temporary facility into which Japanese Americans, known as Nikkei, were forced to gatherbeginning in March 1942, following U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's (1882-1945) Executive Order9066, which set into motion the expulsion of 110,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Themass expulsion forced some 7,500 people from Seattle and the rural areas around Tacoma into theassembly center, where they remained in crowded conditions until their transfer to permanent"relocation centers" (inland prison camps). A key figure in these events was James Sakamoto (1903-1955), a newspaper publisher and a founder of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL).

Forced Exile

On March 30, 1942, 257 Nikkei residents of Bainbridge Island, Washington, walked onto a cross-soundferry under military guard, then boarded a train in Seattle bound for the Manzanar Reception Center inCalifornia’s Owens Valley, 200 miles east of Los Angeles. This transport began the forced exile of 92,000Japanese Americans and their immigrant elders directly from their homes in Washington, Oregon,California, and Arizona into temporary barbed-wire facilities known as “assembly centers.” There theyremained for approximately 100 days until their transfer to permanent “relocation centers” located inremote regions of the American West and Arkansas.

The Army’s task of evicting and housing 92,000 men, women, and children was daunting. In earlyMarch 1942, planners from the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA), headquartered in SanFrancisco, appropriated 15 operational public facilities at fairground, racetrack, and livestock pavilionsites, each providing sufficient acreage and infrastructure necessary to assemble the centers quickly.

Camp Harmony (Puyallup Assembly Center), 1942

By Louis FisetPosted 10/07/2008

HistoryLink.org Essay 8748

Located near city limits with significant Nikkei populations, 12 new sites were developed in Californiaand one each in Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. Built for temporary occupancy, the centers offeredfew amenities and meager social services. Inmates would eat in mess halls and sleep in noisy barrackswhile enjoying little privacy throughout their captivity.

The Puyallup Assembly Center, better known as the euphemism Camp Harmony, a name coined by anArmy public-relations officer during construction, was situated at the Western Washington fairgroundsin the heart of Puyallup. The center also included three adjoining parking lots, thus creating fourseparate areas cut off from one another by city streets. Although this arrangement complicated the workof administrators charged with inter-area movements, it was the only way 7,500 people from Seattle andthe rural areas surrounding Tacoma could be warehoused at a location in the state.

Sakamoto's Role

The Army had help from leaders in the Seattle Nikkei community in bringing the forced eviction tofruition. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, 39-year old Jimmie Sakamoto, editor of the all-English-languageJapanese American Courier and an outspoken personality known both within and without the Japanesecommunity, organized friends and other trusted Nisei to respond to the national emergency and growingnegative attitudes toward the Japanese community.

Later, in April 1942 as the forced exile approached, Army planners requested that Sakamoto’s EmergencyDefense Council help with the impending evacuation and form an administrative body at the PuyallupAssembly Center to help with day-to-day activities and serve as an interface between the inmates andadministration.

Sakamoto’s undemocratic process of hand-picking his associates, combined with the perception withinthe Japanese community that he and his group were accommodationists, created unresolved tensionswith fellow inmates and led to unfortunate consequences during the incarceration experience at CampHarmony.

Preparing for Exile

As the Army’s forced evacuation from the Puget Sound region approached, Nikkei communities in thearea prepared for their exile. Advertisements appeared in Seattle and Tacoma area newspapers, andreaders soon learned there were bargains to be had:

JAPANESE evacuation necessitates immediate sale 55-room brick hotel. Best linens, furnishings:

steam heat, steady tenants.

1936 DESOTO sedan. Attached overdrive, gas-saver transmission; four new tires. Evacuation forces

sale.

Problems for Nikkei farm operators in the Kent valley, the White River Valley, and the Puyallup RiverValley, and elsewhere often proved complex. Long-term leases had to be transferred, expensive farmmachinery disposed of or stored by sympathetic neighbors. Until the last minute, the governmentpressured growers to plant for the 1942 season, equating continued production to a measure of nationalloyalty: Soon crop neglect or damage was elevated to an act of sabotage.

The eviction operation went smoothly in part because of civil control stations the Wartime CivilControl Administration set up in community halls, school gymnasiums, and other public places nearNikkei centers. Six stations were set up throughout Seattle’s central area, with a seventh in Puyallup. There government personnel registered families, provided pre-induction medical screenings, and helpedarrange for storage or sale of properties. Five-digit identification numbers assigned there relegatedfamily units to anonymity: the Itois of Seattle -- family 10710; the Unos -- family 10936.

On each appointed evacuation day, families arrived at pre-arranged gathering points dragging theirpersonal belongings. The gathering area at 8th Avenue and Lane Street near the heart of Seattle’sJapantown was located in the city’s red-light district. Shosuke Sasaki remembered baggage lining bothsides of the street and Nikkei standing in a chilling spring drizzle awaiting the order to board buses. Among them his sister and her two infant children. The door of a brothel opened, and the madaminvited the three into her parlor to wait out the rain, an act of kindness recalled with emotion a halfcentury later.

Shock and Crowding

New Camp Harmony arrivals faced strangers in unaccustomed close quarters, sharing communalrealities of mess halls, latrines, shower rooms, and the barracks, themselves. Late at night was noexception, for open spaces between walls and ceilings amplified sounds that ricocheted through theentire darkened barrack. Insomniacs endured snoring, coughing, whispering, arguing, crying, pacing,and sounds of lovemaking.

As rain fell on the tarpaper roofs at Puyallup during the drenching 1942 Pacific Northwest spring, watertrickled down low angled slopes through cracks and onto blankets, clothes, and faces. Such miseryinformed the early experience of the King and Pierce county Nikkei as they endured the shock of theirsudden loss of freedom.

Nevertheless, Camp Harmony inmates built a semblance of community. Sakamoto’s cadre of Nisei

(American-born to Japanese immigrants) volunteers, coordinating their activities with the centermanager’s instructions, organized work, recreational, and educational activities. Many went to work,most to the mess halls, with others employing specialized skills as clerks, organizers, and medical aides.Nisei teachers and volunteers guided young charges through “vacation school,” while other volunteers setup a rotating inter-area library with books donated by the Seattle Public Library. Workers’ payrollranged from $8 per month for unskilled labor to $16 for professionals. In 2008 dollars, overworkedphysicians earned a meager $212 per month.

Other workers organized recreational activities to help stave off boredom and boost morale: boxing,kendo, sumo, basketball, horseshoe pitching. Softball leagues provoked instant inter-area rivalriesreminiscent of the region’s popular Courier Leagues that dominated the prewar years. Women formedknitting, sewing, and crochet groups, and older men set up go and shogi tournaments. Dance-crazyyoung people headed for the recreation hall to swing to the recorded sounds of Glen Miller.

Getting Through the Day

Yet for most people, absent distractions provided by employment and volunteerism, time passed slowly. Tamako Inouye remembered the summer boredom she and friends experienced at the Camp Harmony:

"There was this space between the barracks. When it was really hot everybody would go toone side of this lane, lean against the building, and just sit there. And later on in the day whenthe sun changed its course we’d go to the other side" (Inouye interview).

As helpful as Sakamoto and his “Japanese Administration” were in helping inmates occupy their timeand maintain morale, the group’s heavy-handedness in carrying out center regulations, such as a ban onJapanese language books and music and setting up a self-government antagonized the inmates andalarmed administrators. As a result, mid-way through the ordeal at Camp Harmony, the Wartime CivilControl Administration banished members of Sakamoto’s group to other centers and reduced the group’sstatus to an advisory council stripped of power. Worse, self-government was banished at all the assemblycenters.

For the most part, getting through the day took on greater importance than self governance. Althoughphysically isolated from their former communities, Camp Harmony inmates accessed news and worldevents through AM band radio broadcasts and mail subscriptions to English language newspapers. Inaddition, the center produced a mimeographed newsletter known as the Camp Harmony-Newsletterpublished by Nikkei editorial and production staff. All issues were distributed free. The center managercommunicated his regulations and directives, while editor Dick Takeuchi reported center-wide

happenings, such as births and deaths, ball scores, and Sunday church schedules. Content was censored,frustrating Takeuchi and his colleagues everywhere. The editor of the Manzanar Free Press notedprivately that only the subscription fee for his publication was free.

With no access to telephone or freedom to move about, letter writing provided the sole means ofcommunication with the outside world. Although the newsletter was heavily censored, first-class mailpassed freely. The Puyallup city post office provided civil service employees to sell stamps, moneyorders, and handle registered mail, while inmates were put on the WCCA payroll at $8 per month to sortincoming mail and provide “home” delivery to the barracks.

Health and Sanitation

Early incompetence by Army planners led to occupancy of the assembly centers before installation ofrefrigeration and other safe food storage equipment. Initially, inmates ate army rations designed fortroops in the field. Fortunately short lived, the canned meat, vegetable, and fruit diet, lacking in ethnicsensitivity, soon gave way to fresh and more palatable fare. However, healthful sanitary conditionsevolved more slowly, resulting in public health threats everywhere.

Outbreaks of diarrhea plagued most assembly centers because of inexperienced workers and improperoversight. In early May, spoiled Vienna sausages caused a severe flare-up among the Puyallup inmates. Symptoms emerged after curfew, and the commotion led to near panic by sentries in the guard towers. Flashlights helping light the way, with all public stalls occupied pinpoints of light moved erratically in thedarkness. Fearing an insurrection, sentries manned the spotlights and called for reinforcements. Butwith order soon restored, tragedy was averted, and the epidemic passed quickly. Given crowded andunsanitary conditions at most assembly centers, that more frequent, if not serious, outbreaks ofgastroenteritis did not take place is surprising.

Nikkei doctors, nurses, dentists, and pharmacists, themselves inmates, provided most of the health careat Camp Harmony. Even though the center’s temporary occupancy relegated its medical facilities toinfirmary status, Army statisticians recorded for the Puyallup Assembly Center a total of 37 births, 11deaths, and, in the month of August alone, seven operating room surgeries and 2,260 outpatienttreatments.

Leaving Early

A few fortunate inmates succeeded in leaving Camp Harmony early. As the nation’s farm labor crisisdeepened with draft-age workers entering military service or taking on higher paying jobs in the warindustry, sugar processors turned to the assembly centers as an untapped labor source. Recruitment atthe Portland and Puyallup Assembly Centers began in mid-May, and soon 72 volunteers from Camp

Harmony departed for eastern Oregon and Montana. By the time the assembly center period ended,nearly 1,600 strong-backed volunteers from half a dozen centers worked the sugar beet fields of theAmerican West. By November Nikkei farm hands, most of them former Camp Harmony inmates,harvested 25 percent of Idaho’s sugar beet crop, with the state’s farmers expressing their gratitude.

Nisei college students, their educations at the University of Washington abruptly suspended, hadslimmer opportunities to leave the center. Although the next three years would see more than 4,000students enter inland colleges and universities, including several hundred from the University ofWashington, the student relocation program began modestly in the assembly centers with 360 transfersand just three from Camp Harmony. The Army opposed student relocation on national security groundsand imposed sufficient restrictions, permitting only a few colleges and universities to participate. Students had to document their financial resources and undergo cumbersome FBI intelligence checks.

Freshman Economics major Kenji Okuda had his acceptance letter from Oberlin College in hand for the1942 fall term. But even with a statement of his financial resources (a $3,000 trust fund) and multipletestimonies from Caucasian friends attesting to his loyalty, he waited in vain for a travel clearance fromSan Francisco. His slot was given to another student, thus delaying his education until the followingspring. Most Nisei former UW students prepared their college applications while at the MinidokaRelocation Center.

Moving to Prison Camps

Transfer out of the assembly centers and into the relocation centers began in June 1942 and continuedthrough October. The first movement to Minidoka occurred on August 9th when 213 volunteers leftCamp Harmony to prepare the center for the new arrivals scheduled to arrive in trainloads units of 500 aday. Wartime demands to move troops on the nation’s rail lines forced the Wartime Civilian ControlAdministration to use re-commissioned passenger cars, hulks that generated universal complaints fromNikkei passengers and officials, and added to the humiliation of incarceration. Dirty, with inadequatewater pressure, faltering air conditioning, and sealed windows preventing air circulation, only thepassing landscape provided temporary diversion from the misery. The transfer to Minidoka required 21specially requisitioned trains.

On November 1, 1942, six days after the final transfer of inmates from Santa Anita Assembly Center tothe Manzanar Relocation Center, the Army under prior agreement with the War Relocation Authorityturned over jurisdiction of 111,000 Japanese Americans. The assembly center period then came to aclose.

Jimmie Sakamoto, who had created such a disruption at Camp Harmony, accompanied his fellow

inmates to Minidoka, but never rose to a leadership position. Alerted ahead of time, administrators atMinidoka barred him from rising above the rank of a block manager.

One silver lining to the difficult assembly center period may be that life in these holding pens preparedinmates for the several years of incarceration that lay ahead. Sharon (Tanagi) Aburano shared with theauthor an insight from her own experience:

"I think that was the best adjustment really the Army could give us, to herd us all together toget us used to queuing up in lines and being a bit more patient and learning to get alongbecause we were in such tight quarters. I think without them knowing, it was the greatestthing to do. When we went to Minidoka the trauma wasn’t there.”

This essay made possible by: The State of WashingtonWashington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation

Camp Harmoney (Puyallup Assembly Center), Spring 1942

Courtesy MOHAI (Image No. 1986.5.6680.1)

Camp Harmony under construction, Puyallup, 1942

Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. UW6914)

Seattle posting of Japanese Exclusion Order (No. 17, dated April 24,1942)

Courtesy Schmid, Social Trends in Seattle (1944)

Bainbridge Island High School pupils cut classes to bid farewell totheir Japanese American classmates, March 1942

Courtesy Schmid, Social Trends in Seattle

Japanese American business in the Pike Place Market after theowners were interned during World War II, 1942

Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives

Camp Harmony (Puyallup Assembly Center), drawing titled "AirConditioning!" August 1942

Drawing by Eddie Sato, Courtesy UW Special Collections (Image No.PH Coll 664.27)

Japanese American evacuees, Camp Harmony (Puyallup AssemblyCenter), 1942

Photo by Howard Clifford, Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. No.UW526)

Internees lined up in the rain at Camp Harmony (Puyallup AssemblyCenter), Puyallup, 1942

Courtesy MOHAI (Image No. 1986.5.6681.3)

Sources:Sources: Louis Fiset, Camp Harmony: Seattle’s Japanese Americans and the Puyallup Assembly Center (University ofIllinois Press, forthcoming 2009); Ads appearing in the classi!ed advertising sections of the Seattle Post-Intelligencerand The Seattle Times, March 1 through April 30, 1942; Audiotaped interviews, Louis Fiset with Sharon (Tanagi)Aburano, Shosuke Sasaki, Tamako (Inouye) Tokuda, and Kenji Okuda, tapes in possession of Louis Fiset, Seattle; U.S.War Department, Final Report: Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast, 1942 (Washington D.C.: GovernmentPrinting O"ce, 1943); Roger Daniels, The Decision To Relocate the Japanese Americans (New York: J. P. LippincottCompany, 1975).

Related Topics: Related Topics: Asian & Paci!c Islander Americans | War & Peace

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