The Bitter Bloom of Yerba Buena: California’s Forgotten Chapter of Injustice
Yerba Buena. The very name, Spanish for "good herb" or "good plant," evokes images of lush, verdant landscapes, of healing and natural beauty. It’s a name that conjures a sense of peace, growth, and prosperity. Yet, on a small, windswept island in San Francisco Bay, bearing this name, lies a largely forgotten chapter of American history that is anything but good, and far from peaceful. Yerba Buena Island, a natural landmass connected to the man-made Treasure Island, once housed a dark secret: a U.S. government facility used to detain, interrogate, and segregate Japanese Americans deemed "disloyal" during World War II.
This was not a typical internment camp, if such a thing could ever be called "typical." While the vast majority of the 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly removed from their homes were sent to ten sprawling, barbed-wire-enclosed "relocation centers" in remote, desolate areas, Yerba Buena served a more sinister purpose. It was a holding pen, a segregation center, and in many ways, a precursor to the more infamous Tule Lake Segregation Center. Its story, though less documented than Heart Mountain or Manzanar, is a crucial piece of the puzzle of a nation grappling with fear, prejudice, and the wholesale abandonment of civil liberties.
To understand Yerba Buena, one must first grasp the climate of fear and xenophobia that swept the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In the hysteria that followed, fueled by decades of anti-Asian sentiment, Japanese Americans – two-thirds of whom were American citizens by birth – were painted as an existential threat, a potential fifth column. Despite a complete lack of evidence of disloyalty or espionage, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the military to designate "military areas" from which "any and all persons may be excluded," effectively paving the way for the mass removal and incarceration of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.
The initial phase of removal involved "assembly centers," temporary facilities often set up in racetracks or fairgrounds, where families waited for transfer to the permanent camps. Yerba Buena Island, however, entered the narrative as a site of more intense scrutiny and punitive detention. Its unique location – a military reservation under the direct control of the U.S. Navy – made it ideal for holding individuals considered particularly problematic or those who had resisted the initial orders.
"Yerba Buena wasn’t for families," explains Dr. Arthur A. Hansen, a leading historian of the Japanese American internment. "It was primarily for individuals, often older Issei [first-generation immigrants] men, who were community leaders, suspected of having ties to Japan, or who had somehow challenged the authority of the government during the initial phases of the roundup." These individuals were seen as potential "troublemakers" or "agitators" who might undermine order in the larger relocation camps. They were separated from their families, often without explanation, and sent to Yerba Buena for further interrogation by the FBI, Military Intelligence, and Naval Intelligence.
Conditions on Yerba Buena were stark. Unlike the family-oriented barracks of Manzanar or Rohwer, the facility on Yerba Buena was more akin to a military prison. Detainees were housed in sparse quarters, under constant guard, with limited communication with the outside world. The isolation, both physical and psychological, was profound. Imagine being an American citizen, stripped of your rights, your family, your livelihood, and then being singled out further, isolated on an island, suspected of disloyalty simply because of your heritage or your community standing.
One of the most insidious tools used to assess "loyalty" was the infamous "loyalty questionnaire," introduced in 1943. This questionnaire, distributed to all adults in the camps, included two particularly problematic questions:
- Question 27: "Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?"
- Question 28: "Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?"
These questions were a cruel Catch-22. For young Nisei men (second-generation American citizens), answering "yes" to Question 27 implied a willingness to fight for a country that had incarcerated them and their families. Answering "no" could brand them as disloyal. For the Issei, who were legally barred from becoming U.S. citizens, swearing "unqualified allegiance" in Question 28 meant renouncing allegiance to Japan, effectively leaving them stateless. Many felt they could not "forswear" an allegiance they never had, or that their loyalty was being questioned for the first time.
Those who answered "no" to both questions – the so-called "No-No Boys" – or who gave qualified answers, were deemed "disloyal" and marked for segregation to the Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California. Yerba Buena played a critical role in this process. Many of those who ended up in Tule Lake, especially the older men who had initially resisted or questioned the government’s authority, passed through Yerba Buena first. It was a filtering station, a place where resistance was identified, and individuals were prepared for further isolation.
The psychological toll on the detainees was immense. Separated from their loved ones, interrogated, and branded as potential enemies, their sense of identity and belonging was shattered. "They were leaders in their communities, men of dignity and respect," noted Frank Abe, author of Conscience and the Constitution: History, Theory, and Law of the Japanese American Internment. "To be treated like criminals, suspected of treason, and then isolated, it was a profound trauma that many carried for the rest of their lives." The very notion that "good herb" could be associated with such an experience underscores the profound irony and injustice of the time.
While the exact number of individuals who passed through Yerba Buena is not precisely known, its existence highlights the extent to which the government went to control and categorize Japanese Americans. It wasn’t just about removing them; it was about crushing dissent, enforcing conformity, and ensuring that no challenge to the internment system could take root.
The legacy of Yerba Buena, and the broader internment experience, casts a long shadow. It took decades for the United States government to acknowledge the profound wrong committed. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which offered a formal apology and symbolic reparations of $20,000 to each surviving internee. The Act stated: "The Congress recognizes that a grave injustice was done to both citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry by the evacuation, relocation, and internment of civilians during World War II." It cited "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership" as the underlying causes.
Today, Yerba Buena Island is no longer a place of detention. It’s a picturesque landscape, home to Coast Guard facilities, luxury residences, and offers stunning views of the San Francisco Bay. Yet, for those who know its history, the beauty is tinged with a painful memory. The concrete and barbed wire are gone, but the scars remain, etched into the collective memory of a community and into the fabric of American history.
The story of Yerba Buena is a powerful reminder of the fragility of civil liberties in times of crisis. It illustrates how easily fear and prejudice can override constitutional protections and how readily a government can dehumanize a segment of its own population. The irony of its name, "good herb," serves as a poignant contrast to the bitter reality experienced by those who were unjustly held within its confines.
As we navigate new challenges and face renewed calls for surveillance and suspicion based on ethnicity or religion, the lessons of Yerba Buena remain critically relevant. It compels us to remember that vigilance is the price of liberty, that justice must apply to all, and that the "goodness" of a nation is truly measured by how it treats its most vulnerable, even in its darkest hours. The forgotten detainees of Yerba Buena whisper a vital truth across the decades: never again should fear be allowed to dismantle the very ideals of justice and equality that America claims to represent.
