Tuleans and Their Descendants Hope Bill to Preserve Segregation Site Gets Needed Attention
HR 2506 has been in committee since June 2007. A letter writing campaign and assurances of support from the bill's sponsor may help push the legislation forward.
When Carl Takei, 28, was in elementary school one of the questions he dreaded most was: "What did you do for your summer vacation?"
His answer was often the same. He and his family spent their summers visiting one of the 10 World War II internment camps.
"At the time it was embarrassing but looking back, I'm glad I had those experiences growing up," said the Yonsei.
In the early 1990s, Carl and his family would drive to the desolate locations that once housed tens of thousands of Japanese Americans. With no signs or people to guide their journeys, they often found it difficult to locate the actual sites. In areas known as Manzanar, Rohwer, Jerome and Tule Lake, swirling dust and long stretches of grass were often all that remained of the camps.
Today, with the help of federal legislation, camps like Manzanar and Minidoka are now a part of the National Park Service with funds for interpretive centers and staff to guide visitors through the history of the internment camps.
It's something the descendants of Tule Lake internees desperately want for the historic Segregation Center.
"It's been great to see at Manzanar how the site has developed and it would be wonderful to see that happen to Tule Lake," said Carl, a board member of the JACL New England chapter whose family members were interned at Tule Lake.
"This is part of my family history and it's a part of our national history. Tule Lake ought to be preserved ... otherwise it makes it much harder to remember the mistakes that were made, the violation of civil liberties."
A federal bill known as the "Tule Lake Segregation Center Special Resource Study Act" has been introduced to attempt to do just that.
HR 2506
S. 1476 was placed on the Senate calendar on April 10 and a vote looks promising. But the companion Tule Lake preservation bill in the House, HR 2506, has been stuck in the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands since June of 2007.
The lack of movement on the House side has many Tule Lake committee members on edge.
"The silence ... well, we don't know what it means," said Carl's mother Barbara Takei, a committee member.
To get some answers, Barbara and the committee members have tried to contact the bill's sponsor - Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif. - but have had little luck. They fear a federal investigation into Doolittle's association with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his decision not to seek reelection, has made HR 2506 a non-priority.
But Doolittle's chief of staff Dan Blankenburg assured the Pacific Citizen that the representative, whose district includes Tule Lake, is still committed to the bill.
"[Rep. Doolittle] believes it's important to recognize the historical significance of the site. It's important for the community at large in the United States," he said.
Blankenburg is also optimistic that the House bill will be taken up this session.
"I believe it has a chance to come up, if not, [Rep. Doolittle] would not have introduced it."
But he too is at a loss to explain what the hold up is in the subcommittee. The cost of the study is estimated to be minimal, between $150,000 to $200,000.
Calls to the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands and its chair, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., were not returned by press time.
Debee Yamamoto, JACL policy director, notes that Doolittle and his staff have been very supportive of the efforts to preserve Tule Lake from the beginning.
"All of my dealings with Doolittle's office have been nothing but supportive," she said.
"We share the belief that the lives of the American public will be enriched through the preservation and study of this time in history when civil liberties of Americans of Japanese descent were unjustly taken away," said Floyd Mori, JACL national director. "We'll continue to work with [Doolittle] to ensure this bill succeeds through the House."
Yamamoto also notes that Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., a cosponsor of the bill, and Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., who recently signed on as a cosponsor, have vocally supported HR 2506.
"By preserving our history, and the physical sites that represent it, we can ensure that we pay due diligence to our past in order to not repeat our mistakes in the future," said Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif.
A Unique History
Hiroshi Shimizu, 65, was just a one-year-old boy when he and his family were sent to Tule Lake, the first of the camps to open and the last to close. Like many of the residents of the camp, Hiroshi's parents were part of the so-called renunicants, those Japanese Americans who made the difficult decision to renounce their U.S. citizenship during the War.
Tule Lake also housed the "no-no" boys, those who answered in the negative when asked the infamous Questions 27 and 28. These men wanted their civil rights restored before offering their lives in defense of a country that had taken those rights away.
Even today, Tule Lake is often referred to as the camp where the "disloyals" were held, a lingering stigma that has often blurred the lines of truth. Of the camps, it was the only one to be ruled under martial law. It was also the largest, housing 18,700 people at its peak.
"Tule Lake has the most untold stories of any of the other camps," said Hiroshi, vice president of the Tule Lake committee and president of the San Francisco JACL chapter. "It's been branded by that disloyalty brand. We'd like to clear that up. All of that was caused by the government and not by any of our people."
Barbara grew up hearing little of the camps from her mother and as an adolescent wrapped up in the civil rights movement, she admits she often wondered why the JAs never fought back.
In 1999 she received a California Civil Liberties Public Education Fund grant to publish a guide called "Tule Lake Revisited." It was only after doing her research that she learned some JAs did fight back and they were at Tule Lake.
"Tule Lake has a fascinating history that is only now beginning to emerge," said Barbara, a member of the Florin JACL chapter. "Tule Lake was the place where there was grassroots protests and resistance." The Tuleans "were the civil rights heroes of World War II. We are trying to get them some respect."
In 2006, 42 acres of Tule Lake were designated as a National Historic Landmark. Now groups hope Tule Lake will become a part of the National Park Service.
Tule Lake Pilgrimage
This July, Lauren Roberts, 26, will head to Modoc County to take part in the Tule Lake pilgrimage, the site where her grandmother and the entire family were interned in 1942.
"The stories I hear from my grandmother about Tule Lake are generally pleasant. For her, it was a time when she had more freedom and her parents were less strict," she said. "That is not to say that it was an easy time for her family however. And as is expected, there is much silence and vagueness around the more difficult things that they went through."
For Lauren, the federal bill to preserve Tule Lake is very personal.
"Tule Lake is our history," she said. "Not only the history of JAs but also of Americans. It is a means to tell our story, to learn from our story, and to relate to one another."
For Nina Fallenbaum, 29, this year's Tule Lake pilgrimage will be her fifth. She plans to make it a family affair with her mother, aunt, and 93-year-old grandmother in tow.
Each year she is shocked to see the deterioration of the historic site which still includes a stockade.
"Visiting the actual site, running your fingers over the walls of the stockade, people see blood stains on the wall, kanji and poems engraved on the walls. It has a powerful effect," said Fallenbaum, the current Mike Masaoka fellow.
Nina hopes legislation to preserve the historic Tule Lake site will take place before the aging Tuleans pass away and the first-person stories are gone forever.
The current congressional session has less than six weeks left and Tule Lake descendants are hopeful the preservation bill will soon come to a vote. The Tule Lake committee has begun an aggressive letter writing campaign and are encouraging legislators to heed their messages.
"There's a sense of urgency. We'd like to get this done this Congress," said Hiroshi.
"I would urge them to finish this one last piece of legislation, help ensure Tule Lake would be protected for future generations," said Barbara. "It would mean a lot to the community."
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