On this week in 1942, the Sacramento Assembly Center, also known as Walerga, opened as a detention center for Japanese Americans following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. This order was signed on February 19, 1942, which authorized the internment and mass incarceration of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident immigrants from Japan. By the end of May 1942, Sacramento’s entire Japanese population (around 3,500 people) were reported to have been sent to Walerga. Walerga held a total of 4,770 individuals over its 52-day occupancy until it was closed June 26th when those detained were relocated to the large internment camp at Tule Lake. The assembly center was 15 miles north of Downtown Sacramento and was the size of 11 square blocks with 225 buildings. Once the assembly center closed, it was turned over to the Army Signal Corps and was renamed Camp Kohler. Today, the Foothill Farms subdivision in North Highlands covers much of the area that was once...