PART 1 Fresnocentric The Heart of a Growing City The Salad Bowl “I don’t think I know what it is precisely (or even second wave of immigrants came crashing ashore Even more secretive was a series of tunnels the imprecisely) that Fresno has,” William Saroyan at Ellis Island, bringing with it a large number of community built beneath the earth. ey served a wrote. “Certainly I don’t know what it’s got that Italians and Russian Jews. variety of purposes. Residents could hide valuables some other town hasn’t got. I do know, however, there. ey could escape the heat … or the au- that it’s got me, because when I left Fresno in 1926 The Chinese thorities. e second consideration became all the my idea was never to go back. at was a good In Fresno, the rst wave of immigrants came not more important as the area grew into a hub of Fres- idea until I discovered that New York was Fresno by sea, but by rail. ey didn’t ride the rails, they no nightlife, often drawing people from upscale all over again.” built them. Chinese immigrants laid thousands of neighborhoods to the other side of the tracks for Saroyan didn’t expand on exactly what he meant miles of track for the great railroad enterprises of legitimate and illegitimate activities alike. ere by that last comparison, but there’s something to the late 19th century, often settling in neighbor- were boxing matches and burlesque shows. During it. e Big Fig (or the Big Raisin, if you prefer) has hoods called Chinatowns in cities up and down Prohibition, Chinatown was one place you could this in common with the Big Apple: It’s a city of the Golden State. Fresno was no exception, and go to buy a sti drink, no questions asked. Such immigrants. e people who came to Fresno just its Chinatown lay just west of the Central Pacic illicit trade was protable, so it’s hardly surprising came from dierent places than the East Coast im- rail line that got to Fresno in that rival Chinese unions migrants, riding dierent historical waves. 1872. ey ended up there known as tongs rose up to In New York, hundreds of thousands arrived because a group of white “On the whole, Fresno’s made demand a piece of the ac- from Ireland in the mid-19th century on the heels landowners got together and tion, maneuvering for inu- of the potato famine. At the same time, crop fail- agreed not to sell any prop- up of a lot of good people, and ence over the narcotics trade ures in Germany prompted many there to head for erty east of the tracks to Chi- it’s got a lot of ethnic balance. and illegal lottery games. the New World. en, at the turn of the century, a nese buyers. In 1935, rumors of an e heart of Fresno’s Chi- Fresno’s done OK for itself.” impending tong war brought natown wasn’t a street, but – Roger Rocka police with loaded shotguns Fresno population, 1940–1990 a narrow strip of concrete into Chinatown. ere they 1940 60,685 called China Alley, which ran broke down four doors on G 1950 91,669 (+51.1%) between F and G streets, from Inyo on the south Street and took 18 men into custody during a raid 1960 133,929 (+46.1%) up through Tulare. It was, literally, a back alley. But on lottery operations. Other ocers took up po- it was also a place to preserve their culture—and sitions around the neighborhood, with orders “to 1970 165,655 (+23.7%) promote some less-than-legal activities—beyond shoot at the rst sign of open violence,” e Bee 1980 217,129 (+31.1%) the view of those who they knew would not ap- reported. e police chief, Frank Truax, cautioned 1990 354,202 (+63.1%) prove. people without business in the district to stay away 2 THE SALAD BOWL and vowed to keep an armed contingent of o cers patrolling the streets until the crisis had passed. How many people escaped to the underground tunnels is unknown, but it’s a sure bet that many did. e arched tunnels, wide enough for two peo- ple to walk abreast, o ered a hidden refuge and, perhaps, also a means of access for the outside world. How far the tunnels went is unclear, but ru- mor has it that they may have extended under the tracks to the downtown area, allowing “reputable” Fresnans covert access to the seedier side of town. In 2013, archaeologists began to dig through the area in earnest, looking to preserve any bits of history buried beneath sidewalks and since forgotten. The Japanese Chinese immigrants weren’t the only ones who lived in Chinatown. Over the years, the neighbor- hood and the surrounding area became home to The Nippon Building on the northwest corner of Kern and F Streets, former home of the Rex and Cal theaters. 2013. numerous immigrants, including Italians, Basques, Russians, Germans and Greeks. Portuguese settlers the north side of Kern and faced each other across more than 100 of them planted around the park’s came from the Azores, a string of nine islands in F Street. Lake Washington. In the summer of 1939, the lo- the Atlantic colonized by Portugal in the 15th Komoto’s Department store operated for many cal Japanese business association presented the city century. In 1880, Fresno County was home to years just up the block, at the corner of Kern with a stone lantern two times the height of an 449 Portuguese immigrants, nearly half of whom and G streets. Several restaurants owned by Japa- average person. It was placed on an island in the worked as sheepherders. nese-Americans could be found in the area, along middle of the lake at Roeding. But six decades later, on the eve of World War with sh markets and a drug store. ere were also Everything changed less than three years later. II, perhaps the most prominent group in China- two massage parlors, a couple of pool halls, bicycle On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan town was the Japanese-American community. In- shops, laundries and various other businesses. unleashed an unprovoked assault on the U.S. na- deed, the 900 block of F Street and the adjacent In many ways, the Japanese-American com- val base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing more than cross-streets of Tulare and Kern housed a plethora munity seems to have enjoyed a good relationship 2,400 Americans. e United States declared war of businesses owned by Japanese-Americans. e with its neighbors. Roeding Park’s Japanese Tea on Japan the following day. Just over two months twin Nippon buildings each ran half a block along Garden featured an impressive wooden pagoda later, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an exec- and the state’s largest grove of cherry trees, with utive order that authorized the military to set up 3 FRESNO GROWING UP geographic zones from which “any and all persons California Governor Earl Warren. “ e only rea- ose held at the fairgrounds came from closer may be excluded.” son that there has been no sabotage or espionage to home: Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare coun- e military used this sweeping power to de- on the part of Japanese-Americans is that they are ties, along with some from around Sarcamento. clare the entire West Coast an exclusion zone for waiting for the right moment to strike,” Warren e American military sought to put the best all persons of Japanese ancestry—foreign or Amer- told Congress. As a Supreme Court justice nine face possible on the situation, declaring that the ican-born. ey would be sent to hurriedly con- years later, this same man would draft the major- internees were being locked up for their own pro- structed assembly centers that served as temporary ity opinion in Brown v. Board of Education—the tection. With most Americans in favor of the pro- barracks while more permanent relocation centers decision that put a dagger in the heart of sepa- gram, the press went blithely along with the story- were being built. e military couldn’t wait. e rate but “equal” education for whites and Afri- line. A front-page story in e Bee, chronicling the army deemed it necessary to separate the ethnic can-Americans. May 11 arrival of the rst internees in Fresno, read Japanese population from the general public as In 1941, he had believed Japanese-Americans as follows: quickly as possible, fearful that those targeted for should be kept separate … and entirely unequal. internment might harm national security interests. As a result of this thinking, thousands of Amer- “Free to come and go as they wish within the is hardly explained why even Japanese-Amer- ican citizens and legal residents were uprooted limits of new abodes provided for them by a con- ican infants in orphanages were included in the from their homes and told to “evacuate,” with only siderate nation, more than 500 evacuated Japa- order, but the nation was in a panic, driven by as much of their belongings as they could carry. nese were in assembly centers near Pinedale and a searing combination of fear and prejudice. e Houses were lost. So were businesses, which at the Fresno District Fairground today. All … fear was perhaps, understandable, in light of the by that time numbered in the hundreds in Fresno appeared pleased with their new surroundings sudden and shocking assault on Pearl Harbor.