68 years ago, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, these Japanese-American men and women were seen as a threat.
They were forced to live at the Merced fairgrounds, before being shipped to internment camps. "We didn't know whether we'd come back home, whether we would get sent back to Japan, which would be stupid, because we're citizens here, or whether they were going to kill us like the Jews. We didn't know and that was really bad."
On Saturday, they were invited back to witness the unveiling of a monument designed in their honor.
It depicts a girl sitting on top of a pile of suitcases, and lists the names of others who have done the same.
Valley congressman Dennis Cardoza helped organize the project after he discovered a small plaque where the new memorial now stands. "And there was a fence in front of it. It wasn't well displayed, and I thought that this was not a fitting remembrance of what happened here."
There are 4,669 names listed on this monument.
All of them are Japanese-American citizens who spent time here at the Merced fairgrounds, where they experienced seclusion and poor living conditions.
"The barracks were very rudimentary. They didn't even have ceilings in the barracks, so it was open between the different rooms."
Sherman Kishi of Livingston arrived to the Merced fairgrounds on his seventeenth birthday back in 19-42.
He and his family of seven spent three months here.
He hopes the new monument will educate others for years to come.
"It's wonderful to think that this might have some effect in the future in terms of the children understanding that such a thing like this happened and that hopefully as they understand that, they will speak up if anything like this happens again."
From its initial planning stages, it took two years to build that memorial.
A $25,000 federal grant helped fund the project.
