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The Sharp Park Detention Station was a Japanese American internment camp located in northern California on land owned by San Francisco in Pacifica.[2] Open from March 30, 1942, until 1946, the camp was built to hold as many as 600 detainees, but later held approximately 2,500 detainees.[3][1]

History

During the Great Depression, the area east of the Sharp Park Golf Course was used as a State Emergency Relief Administration camp to house indigent San Franciscans.[2] The Civil Works Administration employed 600 men to build the camp in 1933, providing food, lodging, medical care and 25 cents a day.[2]

After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 to detain Japanese Americans. In 1942, the relief camp at Sharp Park was selected by the Immigration and Naturalization Service as an internment camp.[2][4]

Sharp Park Detention Station

San Francisco turned over the Sharp Park camp to the federal government in early 1942, and it was opened as an internment camp on March 30, 1942.[5] Quonset huts were built to initially hold between 450 internees. The first detainees at Sharp Park were 193 people transferred on March 31, 1942, from Angel Island Immigration Station, after it was damaged by a fire.[5]

In press coverage of the transfer, the San Francisco News stated "scores of alien Japanese today" were interned in Sharp Park, "where many of them used to spend Sundays fishing... and possibly making notes of reefs, currents and landmarks for the Japanese Navy."[6]

Expansions to the camp grew its holding capacity to 1,200 detainees, though Yamato Ichihashi, who spent six weeks at Sharp Park, wrote there were never more than 500 internees while he was there.[2] Those held included Germans, Italians and Japanese Americans, as well as Mexican, Canadian and Chinese nationals who were believed to hold anti-American sentiments.[5]

Sharp Park held individuals deemed "highly dangerous" by the U.S. government, including priests, community leaders, teachers, and newspaper editors.[7] Press coverage at the time claimed the detainees included "members of secret groups" who "possessed weapons, explosives, signal lights, short wave receiving sets, and other contraband."[2]" Detainees were often held at Sharp Park before being transferred to larger camps further inland.[8][9]

Present day

The Sharp Park camp was torn apart several years after the war.[7] There are not currently any historical markers noting the existence of the camp, and local schools are not taught about the existence of the Sharp Park internment camp.[7] The site of the camp is used today by the San Francisco Archery Club, and the Pacifica Co-op Nursery School uses one of the camp's Quonset huts as a classroom.[2]

In 2022, a group of local Italian-Americans held a presentation on the history of the camp. The organizer, Christina Olivolo, told the Pacifica Tribune, "We didn’t know this was even here. It got to me. Why weren’t we told? We should have been told. People need to know. I found it very disturbing that we didn’t even know about it."[10]

References

  1. ^ a b Wagner, Jim. "Local history: Pacifica's Sharp Park land once housed a war-time internment camp". The Mercury News. Archived from the original on 30 April 2017. Retrieved 9 June 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Kamiya, Gary. "The dark past of San Francisco's Sharp Park". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 19 August 2022. Retrieved 9 June 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  3. ^ "Camp Sharp Park". Pacifica Historical Society. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  4. ^ Barmann, Jay. "Did You Know There Was an Internment Camp For Suspected Japanese Spies During WWII on San Francisco Property?". SFIST. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  5. ^ a b c Historic Resource Study for Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Mateo County (PDF). San Mateo: National Park Service. 2010. pp. 232–233. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  6. ^ "193 Aliens, Chiefly Japanese, Moved to Sharp Park Camp to Ease Immigration Station". The San Francisco News. March 31, 1942. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  7. ^ a b c Bandlamudi, Adhiti. "Pacifica's WWII Prison Camp Has Largely Been Erased — But It Was There". KQED. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  8. ^ "Sharp Park". San Francisco Recreation & Parks. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  9. ^ Tamanaha, Akemi. "Pacifica park was once a Japanese internment Am camp in WWII". AsAm News. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  10. ^ Howell, August. "Italians share history of Sharp Park internment camp". Pacifica Tribune. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.

Further reading

  • Ichihashi, Yamato Morning Glory, Evening Shadows: Yamato Ichihashi and his Internment Writing, 1942–1945 (1975)

External links

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Park_Detention_Station