Sharp Park Detention Station
{{Infobox settlement
| name = Sharp Park Detention Station
| settlement_type = Detainee camp
| image_skyline = Aliens at Sharp Camp following the evacuation order for persons of Japanese ancestry. This camp was set up as detention.jpg
| image_alt = detainees marching out of camp
| image_caption = Sharp Park Internment Camp, 1942
| map_alt = Map of California
| map_caption = Location of the camp in the state of California
| pushpin_map = California
| coordinates = {{coord|37|37|32.42|N|122|28|29.7|W|type:landmark_region:US-CA|display=inline,title}}
| coordinates_footnotes =
| subdivision_type = Country
| subdivision_name = United States
| subdivision_type1 = State
| subdivision_name1 = California
| established_title = Opened
| established_date = 1942
| extinct_title = Closed
| extinct_date = 1946
| founder = War Relocation Authority
| population_as_of =
}}
The Sharp Park Detention Station was a Japanese, Italian and German Internment camp located in northern California on land owned by San Francisco in Pacifica.{{cite web |last1=Kamiya |first1=Gary |title=The dark past of San Francisco’s Sharp Park |url=https://www.sfchronicle.com/vault/portalsofthepast/article/san-francisco-sharp-park-17383752.php |website=San Francisco Chronicle |access-date=9 June 2023 |archive-date=19 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220819155120/https://www.sfchronicle.com/vault/portalsofthepast/article/san-francisco-sharp-park-17383752.php |url-status=bot: unknown }} 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.{{cite web |title=Camp Sharp Park |url=https://pacificahistory.org/camp-sharp-park |website=Pacifica Historical Society |access-date=9 June 2023 |archive-date=13 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613011320/https://pacificahistory.org/camp-sharp-park |url-status=live }}
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. The Civil Works Administration employed 600 men to build the camp in 1933, providing food, lodging, medical care and 25 cents a day.
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.{{cite web |last1=Barmann |first1=Jay |title=Did You Know There Was an Internment Camp For Suspected Japanese Spies During WWII on San Francisco Property? |url=https://sfist.com/2022/08/19/did-you-know-there-was-an-internment-camp-for-suspected-japanese/ |website=SFIST |access-date=9 June 2023 |archive-date=13 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613011320/https://sfist.com/2022/08/19/did-you-know-there-was-an-internment-camp-for-suspected-japanese/ |url-status=dead }}
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.{{cite book |title=Historic Resource Study for Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Mateo County |date=2010 |publisher=National Park Service |location=San Mateo |pages=232–233 |url=https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/upload/san-mateo-hrs-part-iv-mori-point.pdf |access-date=9 June 2023 |archive-date=13 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613011319/https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/upload/san-mateo-hrs-part-iv-mori-point.pdf |url-status=live }} 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.
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."{{cite news |title=193 Aliens, Chiefly Japanese, Moved to Sharp Park Camp to Ease Immigration Station |url=http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist8/sharppark.html |access-date=9 June 2023 |publisher=The San Francisco News |date=March 31, 1942 |archive-date=13 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613011321/http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist8/sharppark.html |url-status=live }}
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. Those held included Germans, Italians and Japanese Americans, as well as Mexican, Canadian and Chinese nationals who were believed to hold anti-American sentiments.
Sharp Park held individuals deemed "highly dangerous" by the U.S. government, including priests, community leaders, teachers, and newspaper editors.{{cite web |last1=Bandlamudi |first1=Adhiti |title=Pacifica's WWII Prison Camp Has Largely Been Erased — But It Was There |url=https://www.kqed.org/news/11918432/pacificas-wwii-prison-camp-has-been-largely-erased-but-it-was-there |website=KQED |access-date=9 June 2023 |archive-date=13 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613011320/https://www.kqed.org/news/11918432/pacificas-wwii-prison-camp-has-been-largely-erased-but-it-was-there |url-status=live }} 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."" Detainees were often held at Sharp Park before being transferred to larger camps further inland.{{cite web |title=Sharp Park |url=https://sfrecpark.org/Facilities/Facility/Details/Sharp-Park-205 |website=San Francisco Recreation & Parks |access-date=9 June 2023 |archive-date=13 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613011320/https://sfrecpark.org/Facilities/Facility/Details/Sharp-Park-205 |url-status=live }}{{cite web |last1=Tamanaha |first1=Akemi |title=Pacifica park was once a Japanese internment Am camp in WWII |url=https://asamnews.com/2022/08/20/japanese-american-internment-camp-sharp-park-pacifica-san-francisco/ |website=AsAm News |access-date=9 June 2023 |archive-date=13 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613011319/https://asamnews.com/2022/08/20/japanese-american-internment-camp-sharp-park-pacifica-san-francisco/ |url-status=live }}
Present day
The Sharp Park camp was torn apart several years after the war. 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. 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.
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."{{cite web |last1=Howell |first1=August |title=Italians share history of Sharp Park internment camp |url=https://www.pacificatribune.com/news/italians-share-history-of-sharp-park-internment-camp/article_4210d95e-392f-11ed-9e70-2b9f007bc21c.html |website=Pacifica Tribune |access-date=9 June 2023 |archive-date=13 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613011329/https://www.pacificatribune.com/news/italians-share-history-of-sharp-park-internment-camp/article_4210d95e-392f-11ed-9e70-2b9f007bc21c.html |url-status=live }}
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- Ichihashi, Yamato Morning Glory, Evening Shadows: Yamato Ichihashi and his Internment Writing, 1942–1945 (1975)
External links
- {{Commons category-inline|Sharp Park Detention Center}}
- [https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Sharp_Park_%28detention_facility%29/ "Sharp Park (detention facility)"], Densho Encyclopedia
- [https://calisphere.org/search/?q=BANC%20PIC%201998.012--PIC "Sharp Park Detention Station"], Voices in Confinement: A Digital Archive of Japanese-American Internees, Bancroft Library
{{Japanese American internment camps|state=collapsed}}
Category:Government buildings in San Francisco
Category:Buildings and structures in San Mateo County, California
Category:Demolished buildings and structures in San Francisco
Category:Internment camps for Japanese Americans