Tule Lake National Monument
This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2008) |
Tule Lake National Monument | |
California Historical Landmark No. 850-2[2] | |
Location | Northeast side CA 139, Newell, California |
---|---|
Coordinates | 41°53′22″N 121°22′29″W / 41.88944°N 121.37472°W |
Website | Tule Lake National Monument |
NRHP reference No. | 06000210[1] |
CHISL No. | 850-2[2] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | February 17, 2006 |
Designated NHL | February 17, 2006[3] |
The Tule Lake National Monument
After a period of use, this facility was renamed the Tule Lake Segregation Center in 1943, and used as a maximum security, segregation camp to separate and hold those prisoners considered disloyal or disruptive to the operations of other camps. Inmates from other camps were sent here to segregate them from the general population. Draft resisters and others who protested the injustices of the camps, including by their answers on the loyalty questionnaire, were sent here. At its peak, Tule Lake Segregation Center (with 18,700 inmates) was the largest of the ten camps and the most controversial.[3] 29,840 people were held there over the four years it was open.[5]
After the war it became a holding area for Japanese Americans slated for deportation or expatriation to Japan, including some who had renounced US citizenship under duress. Many joined a class action suit because of civil rights abuses; many gained the chance to stay in the United States through court hearings but did not regain their citizenship due to opposition by the Department of Justice. The camp was not closed until March 20, 1946, months after the end of the war. Twenty years later, members of the class action suit gained restoration of US citizenship through court rulings.
California later designated this Tule Lake camp site as a
History
The
The Tulean Dispatch is a newsletter that was established in June 1942 and ended in October 1943, when Tule Lake became a segregation center. It was the shortest-running newspaper of the ten concentration camps.[8]
In late 1943, the WRA issued a questionnaire intended to assess the loyalty of imprisoned Japanese Americans. The "
The first question met resistance from young men who, while not opposed to military service outright, felt insulted that the government, having stripped them of their rights as citizens, would ask them to risk their lives in combat. Many responded with qualified statements such as, "I'll serve in the Army when my family is freed", or refused to answer the questions altogether.
Many interns had problems with the second question. Many were insulted that the question implied they ever had allegiance to a country they had either left behind decades before or, for most US citizens, never visited. Others, especially the non-citizen
Tule Lake Segregation Center
In 1943 the center was renamed the Tule Lake Segregation Center.[11] The War Relocation Authority proposed to use it to separate inmates suspected of being disloyal or those who protested conditions and were disruptive in their camps. It was fortified as a maximum security facility and it quickly became the most repressive of the government's 10 concentration camps.[3] Interns who had responded with unqualified "yes" answers to the loyalty questionnaire were given the choice to transfer from Tule Lake to another WRA camp. Approximately 6,500 "loyal" Tule Lake inmates were transferred to six camps in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Arkansas.
The more than 12,000 imprisoned Japanese Americans classified as "disloyal" because of their responses to the poorly worded loyalty questions were gradually transferred to Tule Lake during the remainder of 1943.[7][12] Unsanitary, squalid living conditions, inadequate medical care, poor food, and unsafe or underpaid working conditions prompted prisoner protests at Tule Lake and several other camps. On November 14, after a series of meetings and demonstrations by prisoners over the poor living conditions at the overpopulated camp, the army imposed martial law in Tule Lake.[7][12] The Army had additional barracks constructed early in 1944 to accommodate a second influx of segregated inmates, pushing the already swollen population to 18,700.[12] The camp quickly became violent and unsafe. Martial law in Tule Lake ended on January 15, 1944, but many prisoners were bitter after months of living with a curfew, unannounced barracks searches, and restrictions that put a stop to recreational activities and most employment in the camp.[7]
In the spring of 1944, Ernest Besig of the Northern California branch of the ACLU became aware of a hastily constructed stockade at Tule Lake, in which internees were routinely being brutalized and held for months without due process. Besig was forbidden by the national ACLU to intervene on behalf of the stockade prisoners or even to visit the Tule Lake camp without prior written approval from the ACLU's Roger Baldwin.[13] Unable to help directly, Besig turned to civil rights attorney Wayne M. Collins for assistance. Collins, using the threat of habeas corpus suits, managed to have the stockade closed down. A year later, after learning that the stockade had been reestablished, he returned to the camp and had it closed down for good.[13][14]
On July 1, the
In 1945 after the war's end, the other nine WRA camps were closed as Japanese Americans gradually returned to their hometowns or settled elsewhere. Tule Lake was operated to hold those who had renounced their citizenship and Issei who had requested repatriation to Japan. Most no longer wished to leave the United States (and many had never truly wanted to leave in the first place). Those who wanted to stay in the United States and regain their citizenship (if they had it), were confined in Tule Lake until hearings at which their cases would be heard and fates determined. After the last cases were decided, the camp closed in March 1946. Although these Japanese Americans were released from camp and allowed to stay in the U.S., Nisei and Kibei who had renounced their citizenship were not able to have it restored. Wayne M. Collins filed a
After a 23-year legal battle, Collins finally succeeded in gaining restoration in the late 1960s of the citizenship of those covered by the class action suit.[18][19] Collins also helped 3,000 of the 4,327 Japanese Americans originally slated for deportation remain in the United States as their choice.[17]
Victory for Tule Lake draft resisters
Some of the Japanese-American draft resisters wanted to use their cases to challenge their incarceration and loss of rights as US citizens. United States v. Masaaki Kuwabara,[20] was the only World War II-era Japanese-American draft resistance case to be dismissed out of court based on a due process violation of the U.S. Constitution. It was a forerunner of the Korematsu and Endo cases argued before the US Supreme Court, later in December 1944.
Judge Louis E. Goodman went out of his way to help fellow native Californian and lead defendant Masaaki Kuwabara by hand-picking his defense attorney, Blaine McGowan, who entered a Motion to Quash Proceedings based on the government's abrogation of his client's due process rights, guaranteed to every American citizen by the U.S. Constitution. Without explicitly describing Kuwabara as a victim of federal anti-Japanese racism, Judge Goodman viewed the man's experience in this light. He ruled against the United States, which incarcerated the defendant in a U.S. concentration camp; categorized him as a Class 4-C Enemy Alien; and then drafted him into military service. Kuwabara refused to obey the draft until his rights as an American citizen were restored to him.
Events since the late 20th century
Japanese-American activists revisited the
Pilgrimages
Starting in 1974, Tule Lake was the site of several pilgrimages by activists calling for an official apology from the U.S. government for the injustices to Japanese Americans, both citizens and non-citizens. The pilgrimages (every even year, around the 4th of July), serving educational purposes, continue to this day. This Redress Movement gradually gained widespread support and Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. It included an official governmental apology for the injustices and payment of compensation to camp survivors. A similar law was passed in 1992 to provide for compensation to additional Japanese Americans.
Groups making the annual pilgrimage have organized them around specific themes, and used them as a basis for education, as in the following:
- Recent themes
- 2000 – 'Honoring our Living Treasures, Forging New Links' (7/1-4)
- 2002 – 'As We Revisit the Meaning of Patriotism and Loyalty' (7/4-7)
- 2004 – 'Citizens Betrayed' (7/2-5)
- 2006 – 'Dignity and Survival in a Divided Community'
- 2009 – 'Shared Remembrances' (7/2-5)
- 2010 – 'Untold Stories of Tule Lake' (7/2-5)
- 2012 – 'Understanding No-No and Renunciation' (6/30-7/3)
Federal grant program
On December 21, 2006, U.S. President
Monument management
The Monument is jointly managed by the
The national monument consists of three separate units: the Tule Lake Segregation Center near
Notable inmates
- Violet Kazue de Cristoforo (1917–2007), poet. Also interned at Jerome.
- Mitsuye Endo (1920–2006), plaintiff of the Ex parte Endo Supreme Court case that led to Japanese Americans being allowed to return to the West Coast and to the closing of the war relocation camps. Also interned at Topaz.
- Mary Matsuda Gruenewald (1925–2021), memoirist. Also interned at Heart Mountain.
- Taneyuki “Dan” Harada (1923–2020), a painter and computer programmer. Also interned at Topaz.
- Hiroshi Honda (1910–1970), an American painter.
- Yamato Ichihashi (1878–1963), one of the first academics of Asian ancestry in the United States.
- Emerick Ishikawa (1920–2006), a weightlifting champion.
- sickle cell anemiaand other diseases.
- Shizue Iwatsuki (1897–1984), a Japanese American poet. Also interned at Minidoka.
- Hiroshi Kashiwagi (1922–2019), became a poet, playwright and actor.
- Taky Kimura (1924–2021), martial arts practitioner and instructor. Also interned at Minidoka.
- Daisuke Kitagawa (1910–1970), a reverend and episcopal priest
- Mary Koga (née Mary Hisako Ishii, 1920–2001), a photographer and social worker.
- Tommy Kono (1930-2016), an Olympic gold medalist weightlifter and world record holder.
- Joseph Kurihara (1895–1965), a renunciant. Also interned at Manzanar.
- Masaaki Kuwabara (1913–1993), lead defendant in United States v. Masaaki Kuwabara,[25] the only Japanese-American draft resistance case to be dismissed on the basis of a due process violation of the U.S. Constitution.
- William M. Marutani (1923–2004), lawyer, judge, and member of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
- Bob Matsui (1941–2005), was elected to 13-terms as member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
- Toshiko Mayeda (née Kuki) (1923–2004), a Japanese American chemist
- Tsutomu "Jimmy" Mirikitani (1920–2012), Sacramento, California), artist and subject of The Cats of Mirikitani, an award-winning documentary film.
- Fujimatsu Moriguchi (1898–1962), an American businessman
- Sadako Moriguchi (née Tsutakawa), (1907–2002), an American businesswoman
- Tomio Moriguchi (born 1936), an American businessman and civil rights activist
- Tomoko Moriguchi-Matsuno (née Moriguchi), (born 1945), an American businesswoman
- Karate Kid films; interned as a child nissei with whole family. Later interned at Gila River.
- Jimmy Murakami(1933–2014), an animator and director.
- George Nakano (born 1935), a former California State Assemblyman. Also interned at Jerome.
- Alan Nakanishi (born 1940), a California politician
- James K. Okubo (1920–1967), a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the Medal of Honor. Also interned at Heart Mountain.
- James Otsuka (1921–1984), a conscientious objector during World War II and a war tax resister.
- Otokichi Ozaki (1904–1983), a poet. Also interned at Jerome.
- James Sakoda (1916–2005), a psychologist and pioneer in computational modeling. Also interned at Minidoka.
- Minako Sasaki (1943–2023), an actress. Also interned at Jerome.
- Toshiyuki Seino (born 1938), an American competitive judo athlete.
- Yuki Shimoda (1921–1981), an actor.
- Granada.
- Hana Shimozumi (1893–1978), an American singer.
- Noboru Shirai, author of "Tule Lake: An Issei Memoir." Born in Hiroshima, Japan, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1934, married Akiko May Taketa (a UC Berkeley graduate born and raised in Sacramento) and was a graduate student at Stanford University in 1942. After his release from Tule Lake, Shirai became a successful California businessman.
- Robert Mitsuhiro Takasugi (1930–2009), first Japanese-American appointed to the federal bench.
- George Takei (born 1937), an American actor best known for his role in Star Trek. Also interned at Rohwer.
- George T. Tamura (1927–2010), an artist.
- Kazue Togasaki (1897-1992), one of the first two women of Japanese ancestry to earn a medical degree in the United States. Also interned at Topaz and Manzanar.
- Teiko Tomita (1896–1990), a tanka poet. Also interned at Heart Mountain.
- Taitetsu Unno (1930–2014), a Buddhist scholar, lecturer, and author. Also interned at Rohwer.
- Harry Urata (1917–2009), a music teacher
- Jimi Yamaichi member of the 27 draft resisters of conscience,[26] a Tule Lake survivor who shares his memories at the biennial pilgrimages, and promotes preservation of the site.
- Koho Yamamoto (born 1922), an American artist . Also interned at Topaz.
- Takuji Yamashita (1874–1959), an early 20th-century civil rights pioneer. Also interned at Manzanar and Minidoka.
- Kenneth Yasuda (1914–2002), scholar and translator. Also interned at Jerome.
Terminology
Since the end of World War II, there has been debate over the terminology used to refer to Tule Lake, and the other camps in which
In 1998, use of the term "concentration camps" gained greater credibility prior to the opening of an exhibit at Ellis Island about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Initially, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the National Park Service, which manages Ellis Island, objected to the use of the term in the exhibit.[32] But, during a subsequent meeting held at the offices of the AJC in New York City, leaders representing Japanese Americans and Jewish Americans reached an understanding about the use of the term.[33] After the meeting, the Japanese American National Museum and the AJC issued a joint statement (which was included in the exhibit) that read in part:
A concentration camp is a place where people are imprisoned not because of any crimes they have committed, but simply because of who they are. Although many groups have been singled out for such persecution throughout history, the term 'concentration camp' was first used at the turn of the century in the
Holocaust. Many others, including Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals and political dissidents were also victims of the Nazi concentration camps. In recent years, concentration camps have existed in the former Soviet Union, Cambodia and Bosnia. Despite differences, all had one thing in common: the people in power removed a minority group from the general population and the rest of society let it happen.[34][35]
The
On July 7, 2012, at their annual convention, the National Council of the Japanese American Citizens League unanimously ratified the Power of Words Handbook, calling for the use of
truthful and accurate terms, and retiring the misleading euphemisms created by the government to cover up the denial of Constitutional and human rights, the force, oppressive conditions, and racism against 120,000 innocent people of Japanese ancestry locked up in America's World War II concentration camps."[39]
See also
- List of national monuments of the United States
- Ansel Adams
- California Water Wars
- Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project
- Dorothea Lange
- Other camps:
- Gila River War Relocation Center
- Granada War Relocation Center
- Heart Mountain War Relocation Center
- Jerome War Relocation Center
References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
- ^ a b "California Historical Landmarks: Modoc County". Office of Historical Preservation, California State Parks. Archived from the original on October 14, 2012. Retrieved October 10, 2012.
- ^ a b c d "National Historic Landmarks Program: Tule Lake Segregation Center". National Park Service. February 17, 2006. Archived from the original on October 8, 2012. Retrieved October 6, 2012.
- ^ a b "Tule Lake Unit". National Park Service. Archived from the original on October 13, 2012. Retrieved October 6, 2012.
- ^ "Tule Lake (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
- ^ "Text - S.47 - John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act". United States Congress. March 12, 2019. Archived from the original on March 18, 2019. Retrieved March 12, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Barbara Takei. "Tule Lake," Archived 2013-05-11 at the Wayback Machine Densho Encyclopedia (accessed 18 Mar 2014).
- ^ "Tulean Dispatch (newspaper)". encyclopedia.densho.org. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
- ^ Cherstin M. Lyon. "Loyalty questionnaire," Archived 2018-02-09 at the Wayback Machine Densho Encyclopedia (accessed 18 Mar 2014).
- ^ Hatamiya, Leslie (1993). Righting A Wrong: Japanese Americans and the Passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Stanford University Press. p. 20.
- ^ Memorandum of Agreement Between the War Department and the War Relocation Authority (webpage image of dept/authority document), JAvadc.org, August 5, 1943, archived from the original on May 3, 2020, retrieved May 26, 2014
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b c d e Tule Lake Committee Archived 2006-04-14 at the Wayback Machine, "History" (accessed 17 Mar 2014).
- ^ a b Yamato, Sharon (October 21, 2014). "Carrying the Torch: Wayne Collins Jr. on His Father's Defense of the Renunciants". Discover Nikkei.
- ISBN 9781597144360.
- ^ Turnbull, Lornett (June 30, 2004). "WWII brought hard choice for some Japanese-Americans internees". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on July 24, 2008. Retrieved April 12, 2009.
- ^ "Japanese Americans, the Civil Rights Movement and Beyond" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved April 10, 2009.
- ^ a b Chersin M. Lyon. "Segregation," Archived 2014-03-13 at the Wayback Machine Densho Encyclopedia (accessed 18 Mar 2014).
- JSTOR 3638863.
- ^ Kennedy, Ellen Clare (October 2006). "The Japanese-American Renunciants: Due Process and the Danger of Making Laws During Times of Fear". Archived from the original on August 15, 2009. Retrieved April 11, 2009.
- ^ 56 F. Supp. 716 (N.D. Cal 1944)
- ^ "H.R. 1492". georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov. Archived from the original on September 26, 2017. Retrieved September 17, 2017.
- ^ Proclamation 8327 of December 5, 2008, Establishment of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument Archived 2019-05-05 at the Wayback Machine, 73 FR 75293 (2008-12-10).
- ^ "Management - Tule Lake National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)". National Park Service. Archived from the original on May 17, 2019. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
- ^ "Statistical Data Tables for Fish & Wildlife Service Lands (as of 9/30/2017)" (PDF). U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. September 30, 2017. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 17, 2018. Retrieved February 3, 2018.
Table 10. National Monuments
- ^ United States v. Masaaki Kuwabara, 56 Federal Supplement 716 (Northern District, California), July 22, 1944.
- ^ United States v. Masaaki Kuwabara, 56 F. Supp. 716 (N.D. Cal 1944)
- ^ "The Manzanar Controversy". Public Broadcasting System. Archived from the original on November 8, 2012. Retrieved July 18, 2007.
- JSTOR 3054440. Archived from the originalon December 29, 2002. Retrieved July 18, 2007.
- ^ Ito, Robert (September 15, 1998). "Concentration Camp Or Summer Camp?". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on January 4, 2011. Retrieved November 18, 2010.
- ^ "CLPEF Resolution Regarding Terminology". Civil Liberties Public Education Fund. 1996. Archived from the original on July 3, 2007. Retrieved July 20, 2007.
- ^ "Densho: Terminology & Glossary: A Note On Terminology". Densho. 1997. Archived from the original on June 24, 2007. Retrieved July 15, 2007.
- ^ Sengupta, Somini (March 8, 1998). "What Is a Concentration Camp? Ellis Island Exhibit Prompts a Debate". New York Times. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
- ^ McCarthy, Sheryl (July–August 1999). "Suffering Isn't One Group's Exclusive Privilege". HumanQuest.
- ^ "American Jewish Committee, Japanese American National Museum Issue Joint Statement About Ellis Island Exhibit Set To Open April 3" (Press release). Japanese American National Museum and American Jewish Committee. March 13, 1998. Archived from the original on June 17, 2010. Retrieved December 30, 2007.
- ^ Sengupta, Somini (March 10, 1998). "Accord On Term "Concentration Camp"". New York Times. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved June 13, 2010.
- ^ "Words for Suffering". New York Times. March 10, 1998. Retrieved December 31, 2007.
- ^ Haberman, Clyde (March 13, 1998). "NYC; Defending Jews' Lexicon Of Anguish". New York Times. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
- ^ Harris, David A (March 13, 1998). "Exhibition on Camps". New York Times. Archived from the original on February 9, 2011. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
- ^ Noguchi, Andy (July 15, 2012). "JACL Ratifies Power Of Words Handbook: What Are The Next Steps?". Japanese American Citizens League via the Manzanar Committee. Archived from the original on May 17, 2013. Retrieved July 22, 2012.
Further reading
Articles
- "A request to be honored as patriots: World War II internees vote for recognition", by Lee Juillerat H&N Regional Editor, Herald and News (July 3, 2012).
- "At Internment Camp, Exploring Choices of the Past", Tulelake Journal, by Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times (July 8, 2012).
- 'Former Tule Lake segregation camp prisoners make pilgrimage, recall lost years', by Alex Powers, Herald and News (July 4, 2012).
- 'Interest in Tule Lake Unit goes beyond Basin: Concerned public seeks monument's conservation', by Lee Juillerat H&N Regional Editor, Herald and News (8/19/2012).
- 'Photographer finds dignity in a dark time', by Ayako Mie, Staff writer for The Japan Times (8/16/2012).
Books
Nisei draft resisters
- Free to Die for their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II, 2001, by Eric Muller.
Renunciants
- Native American Aliens: Disloyalty and the Renunciation of Citizenship by Japanese Americans during World War II, 1985, Donald E. Collins.
Tule Lake
Fiction
- Tule Lake, 2006, a novel by Edward T. Miyakawa.
Non-fiction
- Kinenhi: Reflections on Tule Lake, by the Tule Lake Committee (1980).
- Tule Lake Revisited: A Brief History and Guide to the Tule Lake Concentration Camp Site, Second edition, 2012, by Barbara Takei and Judy Tachibana.
- Tule Lake: An Issei Memoir, by Noboru Shirai; an autobiographical account, published in English in 2001 by Muteki Press. ISBN 978-0971610804. Originally published in Tokyo, Japan, in 1981, by Kawade Shobo Shinsha, under the title, Kariforunia nikkeijin kyōsei shūyōjo.
U.S. concentration camps
- Concentration Camps U.S.A: The Japanese Americans and World War II, 1971, by Roger Daniels.
- Keeper of Concentration Camps: Richard T. Drinnon.
- Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps, 1976, by Michi Weglyn.
Dissertations
- Bitter Sweet Home, 2005 dissertation by Junko Kobayashi on the Japanese-language literature of the wartime incarceration
Film
- From a Silk Cocoon, a film about Itaru and Shizuko Ina and segregation at Tule Lake, 2004, produced and directed by Satsuki Ina.
- Resistance at Tule Lake, directed by Konrad Aderer, 2017.
Journals
- "A Question of Loyalty: Internment at Tule Lake," Journal of the Shaw Historical Library, Vol. 19, 2005, Klamath Falls, OR
External links
- Official NPS Website Tule Lake National Monument
- Takei, Barbara. "Densho Encyclopedia: Tule Lake". encyclopedia.densho.org. Densho. Retrieved July 13, 2016.
- Tule Lake Relocation Center for Japanese Americans / photographed by Raymond Okamura, The Bancroft Library
- Views of Tule Lake Relocation Center, The Bancroft Library
- June letter : Tule Lake Relocation Center, to Satoka, 1943 Mar. 8, The Bancroft Library
- Rosalie H. Wax Papers, The Bancroft Library
- Tule Lake Relocation Center views, Calif. [graphic], The Bancroft Library
- Tule Lake Committee History, photos, and VR panoramas.
- 1944 "Aquila" Tri-State High School Yearbook The yearbook for the camp high school.
- "Tulean Dispatch" Densho Encyclopedia article on the camp newspaper
- Japanese Internment : Tule Lake, 1935-1988. Collection guide, California State Library, California History Room.
- Japanese Relocation Center, Tule Lake Collection, 1943-1943. Collection guide, California State Library, California History Room.
- Tulean Dispatch Collection available at Holt-Atherton Special Collections.