First Congregational Church of Berkeley, United Church of Christ

Japanese Americans Bound for WWII American Concentration Camps 

April 1942

A legacy of anti-Asian racism, and fear and anger after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, prompted President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. It led to the imprisonment, without charges against them, of approximately 120,000 residents of Japanese ancestry. Most were American-born citizens. All were held under armed guard behind barbed wire in remote locations. 

In Berkeley, some 1,300 local “persons of Japanese ancestry, alien or non-alien” including students, staff, and faculty at the University of California and the Pacific School of Religion, were forced to leave homes, jobs, and school and were taken into U.S. Army custody.

Some local church, campus, and community leaders advocated for just treatment of Japanese Americans. Unable to prevent the mass imprisonment, First Congregational Church offered its space as a humane alternative to the Army’s outdoor “assembly point.” Local churchwomen came here to provide food, hospitality, child-care, and other support to the Japanese Americans as they were registered by the Army and then taken to an initial detention center at the Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno.