Is There Room for JA History in the Sport of Kings?
Santa Anita recently announced revitalization plans to pluck its parent company out of debt, but at what cost?
There is a longstanding joke in the Okimoto family: all great men are born in stables.
When the Okimotos arrived at the Santa Anita Assembly Center in Arcadia, Calif. during World War II, Ruth Okimoto's mother, Kirie, was six months pregnant.
They lived in an "apartment" just big enough for five cots. Ruth, then 6, had the cot closest to the window and at night, the searchlight would pour into the window and jar her awake.
"It was hardly a home," said Ruth.
The Okimotos lived that way at the famous Santa Anita racetrack from May 1 to Aug. 27, 1942, until they were taken to Poston in Arizona. Ruth's short stay there didn't allow for many clear memories to embed. Sometimes she wondered if the hazy images of the racetrack were real or her mind's way of filling in the blanks.
But there will always be a part of the Okimotos at Santa Anita - Ruth's younger brother Daniel was born at the racetrack that August. His state-issued birth certificate lists the Santa Anita Assembly Center Hospital as his official birthplace and their mailing address as "Ave V, Barrack 27, Unit 6."
It's hardly a normal birthplace, especially since almost every trace of "home" has been dismantled, painted over and pushed out of sight. Last month, racing at Santa Anita started again and somewhere in the procession of thoroughbreds and the crush of people is the Okimoto's family history, which has recently been made more tenuous with the racetrack's revitalization plans.
The "debt elimination plan" announced Sept. 13 by Santa Anita's owner Magna Entertainment Corp. (MEC) calls for possible "partnerships or joint ventures" with other businesses as one solution for the company's estimated $700 million debt. Currently, the racetrack is also in the midst of renovations, which may threaten what little is left of the Okimotos at Santa Anita - and over 19,000 other JAs held there during WWII.
Business is business, but in the sport of kings, is there room for JA history?
Marking History
"I was among the thousands rounded and placed at Santa Anita for six months," said Rose Ochi, a former Los Angeles police commissioner and current executive director of the California Forensic Science Institute at Cal State University, Los Angeles. Ochi was about four years old when her family lived at the racetrack.
"They sort of whitewashed the manure," she said about the hastily built housing.
For about seven months in 1942, racing stopped at Santa Anita. Horses were moved out and as many as 19,348 JAs were moved into the largest Wartime Civilian Control Agency assembly center, according to the National Park Service (NPS).
Assembly centers like Santa Anita were like purgatory, a place where internees bided their time until more permanent camps were built. Almost overnight, JAs went from their suburban homes to overcrowded barracks and horse stalls.
"There are still many stories about the temporary assembly centers that still need to be told," said Scott Kurashige, an Asian/Pacific Islanders American Studies assistant professor at the University of Michigan.
Since WWII, many assembly centers have faded away. The former Tanforan Assembly Center in Northern California is now a strip mall. Santa Anita is still a functioning racetrack.
There's a need to recognize the whole history of the internment, said Kurashige. Santa Anita holds historical distinction because it was a place close enough for friends of internees to visit, but not far away enough for local residents who considered JAs wartime enemies.
The temporary nature of the assembly centers have placed them in the shadows of the main 10 War Relocation Authority camps. But assembly center experiences have left indelible marks on many of its former residents.
"I got my lifelong nickname 'Horse' while at the assembly center because I used to run around the track for exercise and people started kidding me with words like, 'You think you're a race horse,'" said George Yoshinaga, who was 18 years old when he arrived at Santa Anita.
Years after living there, Yoshinaga asked Santa Anita officials to recognize its JA history. The racetrack refused for three years.
"Their reason was that 'Santa Anita is a fun place' and they didn't want to display anything that would jeopardize the atmosphere of the facility."
With an ownership change and the help of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, Yoshinaga's hard work paid off in 2001 when a plaque was placed in Santa Anita's West Paddock Garden.
Still, it took Santa Anita nearly 60 years to set its JA history in stone - literally. Now, Santa Anita President Ron Charles said the racetrack is more committed to historical preservation.
But some critics remain dubious.
A Tenuous Future and a Questionable Track Record
Santa Anita cares more about the history of horseracing than its larger social history, said Kurashige, who researched the racetrack for his forthcoming book, "The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles."
It's a claim Santa Anita officials refute.
Santa Anita is committed to preserving both its horseracing history and its role in social history, said Charles, adding, "I think they go hand-in-hand."
But Santa Anita's track history tells a different story of the racetrack and its parent company, MEC.
In 1999, MEC owner Frank Stronach was largely criticized for compromising the racetrack's historic art deco architectural design to build elevator towers and restaurants. Those renovation plans were not submitted for appropriate public review, according to the Los Angeles Conservancy.
Santa Anita was eligible in 2006 for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, but has not yet been officially listed. The property owner needs to approve the official listing. It was something Santa Anita backed away from because of pending litigations, said Charles.
In April, the Arcadia City Council approved a plan to develop an 830,000-square-foot commercial, retail and office project on the racetrack's south parking lot. The project set off a war between its developer, Caruso Affiliated, residents and the current mall next door.
"Santa Anita has an opportunity to educate the public. Instead of only taking our bets and money, they should give back," said Tony Osumi, a Southern Calif.-based schoolteacher. "The plaque is a start, but national historic landmark status raises the site's significance and can help educate the broader public."
More changes are set for the horseracing entertainment company mired in debt.
MEC is currently exploring the possibility of partnerships with other businesses as minority shareholders - meaning they are looking to sell up to 40 percent of Santa Anita.
The news has made the JA community and conservationists nervous.
"I don't know what will happen if the ownership changes because usually in transactions like this, many major changes do take place. The plaque honoring the JAs may become expendable. I hope not, but anything is possible," said Yoshinaga.
"We are mindful of history and working to do a better job," assured Charles.
Plans to renovate the racetrack's backstretch - where many JAs lived in WWII - began this year. Santa Anita is looking into preserving some replicas of the barracks and placing it in a more visible area, added Charles. However, he declined to further comment on the status of this preservation effort.
In September and October NPS representatives will be holding workshops throughout the U.S. to help develop the criteria for a grant program geared towards the preservation and interpretation of WWII JA confinement sites. Santa Anita will be included in the workshop discussions.
The workshops are the result of a 2006 bill President George W. Bush signed into law authorizing up to $38 million to go towards the preservation of JA confinement sites. Once the grant program is funded, any group can apply for a grant to go towards a preservation project.
But again, the property owner needs to approve the project.
Many argue that Santa Anita needs to move forward with preservation of its JA history.
"This particularly degrading part of the camp experience should not be allowed to fade away because, in many ways, it captures the racism as well as the incredible hardship the internees had to endure," said Bruce Embrey, whose mother, Sue Kunitomi Embrey, was instrumental in making Manzanar a national historic site.
"You'd think that after an official apology from the president of the United States and the active participation of the NPS in preserving the history of the camps, any institution -public or private - should do no less," Bruce added.
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