Los Angeles Relocation Guide - Antevia

Japanese Americans arrive at the Internment Camp at the Santa Anita Park racetrack.During World War II, Arcadia's Santa Anita Park racetrack was at one point the largestJapanese American assembly center in the United States. Internees often experiencedappalling conditions at the racetrack, some for more than a year, before being moved topermanent "relocation" camps in Owens Valley, Utah, and Wyoming. Imprisoned solelybecause of their ethnicity, internees lived three families to a barrack (or horse-stable insome cases), took group showers, lacked private bathrooms, and lived under 24-hourarmed surveillance. At the time, Arcadia's civic leaders were very vocal in their supportof the internment policies of the Federal Government. (See: Japanese internment in theUnited States)Until a Supreme Court ruling in 1965, every property sale contract within the borders ofArcadia had to include a provision that the new owner could only sell the property to awhite Protestant, though many non-Protestant families did, in fact, own homes and live inArcadia long before that ruling.In October 1975, the Santa Anita Fashion Park was opened to the public on the corner ofBaldwin Avenue and Huntington Drive. The center court featured a gigantic blue head byRoy Lichtenstein, later removed.