5,344 Americans were forced to live at the Fresno Fairgrounds. Here's what it was like

FRESNO, Calif (KSEE/KGPE) - A California woman who lived for five months in a temporary internment camp at the now Fresno Fairgrounds says she still has an empty feeling inside when she revisits the fair and sees it as a place she used to live.

Frankie Wilkinson lived in the middle of the horse race track at the Fresno Fairgrounds from May to October 1942.

Wilkinson was eight-years-old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. She said her sister came home on the day of the attack and told her family the news. Wilkinson says at the time she had no idea where or what Pearl Harbor was.

Two months after the attack, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order forcing more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans on the west coast to relocate into internment camps. At the time there was a perception of "public danger," according to the National Archives.

The Fresno Fairgrounds were one of 15 so-called assembly centers established across the western United States. These facilities were used for the temporary confinement of Japanese Americans on the way to longer-term internment camps such as Manzanar.

In this undated photo provided by the War Relocation Authority, armed guard overlooks barracks built in the middle of the racetrack at the Fresno Fairgrounds in Fresno, Calif. The assembly center, one of 13 built in Calif., was the first stop for detainees before they were sent to permanent internment camps. About 5,300 people were held at the center between May and October 1942. (AP photo/War Relocation Authority)

Three months after the executive order was put into effect, Wilkinson's family of 12 got word that they would have to move to one of the twelve centers at the Fresno Fairgrounds.

Wilkinson's parents were told by a family friend that they were going to be moved to the Fresno Fairgrounds and that they need to bring items that most people would not think to bring. Her family brought a bucket, a mop, a broom, and even a bathtub.

Wilkinson says the bathtub was one of the most significant items her family brought. According to Wilkinson, the rest of the camp was forced to use one bathroom; Women, Men, and children were forced to use the same bathrooms without dividers or any kind of separation.

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In total, 5,344 Japenese-American passed through the Fresno Fair Grounds according to the Fresno Fair.

Wilkinson says they were told from the beginning that the fairgrounds stay would only last for six months before they were moved farther east.

Families were also forced to eat in mess halls, according to Wilkinson.

"There wasn't a lot to do," said Wilkinson. She and the other kids in the center had to come up with their own games most of the time. She says there wasn't any room to be a kid.

After their time in Fresno, the family of twelve was sent to Gerome, Arkansas until March of 1944. Wilkinson's father got his family out of the camp after he was sponsored by a man in Arkansas to help with the labor shortage due to the war.

After the war, Wilkinson says a lot of parents in the Japanese-American community didn't talk about the forced relocation. Wilkinson says her father told her that Japanese-Americans cooperated with the government to show they were not a threat and that the move by the U.S government was to keep them safe during the war.

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Wilkinson's family remains linked to the site to this day. Each member of her family that lived at the fair has a commemorative brick at the Assembly Center Memorial outside the commerce center at the fairgrounds.

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5,000 attend rock concert in Barcelona after COVID-19 screen

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — If one overlooked the white face masks dotting the tightly packed crowd of music lovers, it was almost like pre-pandemic times in Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi concert hall Saturday night. 

Five thousand rock fans enjoyed a real-as-can-be concert after passing a same-day coronavirus screening, to test its effectiveness in preventing outbreaks of the virus at large cultural events.

The only rule inside the show was the strict use of the high-quality face masks provided by the concert organizers. 

“We were able to evade reality for a while,” said 40-year-old Jose Parejo. “We were inside our small concert bubble. And we were even able to remember back in time when things like this one were normal. Things that nowadays aren’t that normal, sadly.”

The show by Spanish rock group Love of Lesbian had the special permission of Spanish health authorities. While the rest of the country was limited to gatherings of no more than four people in closed spaces, the concertgoers were able to mix freely.

The musicians were also swept up in the moment.

“It’s been a year and half since we last set foot on a scenario as a band,” singer Santi Balmes told the crowd. “This is so. ... some of the musicians are crying over here.”

Ticket buyers chose between three venues in Barcelona where they could take a quick antigen test on Saturday morning. Those with negative results got a code on their cellphones validating their tickets for the 7 p.m. show. 

People with heart disease, cancer, or those who have been in contact with someone infected by COVID-19 in recent weeks were asked not to sign up. 

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Organizers said it was the first commercial event with an audience that big held in Europe during the pandemic. 

The show was sold out. The tickets, ranging from 23-28 euros ($27-33), included the cost of the test and the face mask that was obligatory except when eating or drinking in designated areas. 

The concert was backed by local authorities and by experts of Barcelona’s The Fight AIDS and Infectious Diseases Foundation, which also organized a case study around a smaller concert of 500 people in December. They said that the results of that preliminary case study showed that pre-screening with antigen tests and the use of face masks succeeded in preventing infections inside the concert despite there being no social distancing rules.

“This is another small step toward being able to hold concerts and cultural events” during the pandemic, said Dr. Boris Revollo, the virologist involved in the design of the health protocols.

In addition to being 10 times larger than the concert in December, this time there was no control group maintained outside the concert hall. 

Instead, concertgoers agreed public health authorities can inform Revollo’s team if they come down with the coronavirus in the weeks after the concert. With that information, Revollo’s team will do an analysis of infection rates among the 5,000 concertgoers compared with that of the general population to see if there are any discrepancies that could point to contagion at the concert. 

For 37-year-old Gerard Munne, it was a release. 

“A sensation of freedom, being able to feel the warmth of the people,” he said. ”(It was) yesterday’s normality.”

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