Tule Lake Segregation Center

Today on the way to Reno, Nevada I was surprised to find that I passed by a Japanese American internment site that dated back to World War II. Tule Lake Segregation Center was created in 1942 after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Without trials or documentation of disloyalty, over 120,000 Japanese Americans were placed in ten internment camps located in isolated areas of the United States. Sixty-two percent of the internees were American born citizens. Initially Tule Lake Camp held 15,257 men, women, and children. In 1943 the camp was transformed into a segregation center to hold men who refused to sign a deeply flawed loyalty oath which was supposed to separate loyal from disloyal internees. The population of the camp surged to 18,789 people. Overcrowding, harsh conditions, and mismanagement caused great turmoil and a jail was put in the camp and martial law was instituted. Tule Lake became known as one of the harshest internment camps in the system. While I was exploring the monument that marks the site, I discovered two pictures. One was of a Japanese American family and another was of a group of school children in front of a building. As I did a bit more research, I learned that a group of former internees had recently visited the camp as part of a bus tour pilgrimage to visit former camps including Heart Mountain and Tule Lake. George Takei, primarily known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the Star Trek films, was interned at Tule Lake from the age of seven to nine years old. At a talk in a nearby town, Takei had this to say about his experience. "It was three things: war hysteria, race prejudice, and reckless, irresponsible political leadership that fanned the flames of fear and ignorance. This is a relevant story to our times today, because we hear the same echoes of those hysterics today in our presidential candidates, and it is chilling that there are so many people that are being stampeded by that kind of xenophobic rhetoric."  I found myself wondering about the pictures I found, the families who were impacted, and the implications for our lives today. It is important to note that in 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act which apologized for internment on behalf of the government and authorized a payment of 20,000 dollars to each surviving internee. May we learn from our mistakes in history and never repeat them again. 

At the monument with the photos on the other side of me. 

Photo of the children at the camp. 

Photo of the family-who were they? What is their story?