J apanese American Internment at Tanforan: Photographs by Dorothea Lange (February 1 to April 10, 2022) in the Lower Rotunda features eight large format photographs by Lange showing both the arrival at Tanforan and daily life.  Additionally, there is a rendering of the new memorial planned for Tanforan, now a regional shopping center, and a maquette of the statue that will be on display there.

The Empire of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942.  It authorized the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to locations further inland.

Some 120,000 West Coast Japanese Americans were at first sent to temporary “Assembly Centers” until the more permanent “Internment Camps” were built.  Around 8,000 Japanese Americans, mostly from northern California, were incarcerated at Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno for six months during 1942 until their forced removal to places like Camp Topaz in Utah.

In 1942, photographer Dorothea Lange, already famous for her pictures of Great Depression Dust Bowl refugees, began documenting this forced removal.  Her photographs of Tanforan graphically depict the harshness of the experience, which included many families having to live in horse stalls.