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LOS ANGELES » Los Angeles officials have voted to designate a World War II-era internment camp in the San Fernando Valley as a historic-cultural monument.
City News Service reports the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to honor the former site of the Tuna Canyon Detention Station, which is now a one-acre oak grove.
More than 2,500 Japanese, Japanese Americans, Germans, Italians and Japanese-Peruvians were detained there following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The council vote overturns the Cultural Heritage Commission’s rejection of the designation earlier this year. In its rejection the commission noted that none of the camp’s original buildings were still standing.
Councilman Richard Alarcon countered that numerous other sites without original structures are honored by the commission, including a former Disney Studio site that is now a Gelson’s supermarket.
