Marysville DOR speakers included (from left) Jan Morrill, Jim Tanimoto, Wayne Merrill Collins and Helen Hannan Parra (Photo: Steven Sasaki/@sasaki.photography)
A rare eyewitness account of Tule Lake’s final day
is shared at Marysville JACL’s Day of Remembrance.
By Ron Nakano, Marysville JACL
A rare firsthand account describing the final day of the Tule Lake Segregation Center was shared publicly during Marysville JACL’s annual Day of Remembrance event, held at Ettl Hall in Yuba City, Calif., on Feb. 21.
The account was written on March 20, 1946, by 16-year-old Mari Hannan, whose father was an Army lawyer sent to Amache and Tule Lake to help Japanese Americans. The Hannan family made many Japanese American friends during their time there.
Mari Hannan documented the chaotic final hours of the camp through notes and photographs, describing the uncertainty families faced as lists were posted determining who would be freed and who would be deported to Japan.
Reading from her sister’s writings, speaker Helen Hannan Parra described the moment when one imprisoned man discovered he would be released.
“He let out a shriek,” Mari Hannan wrote. “He kept yelling, ‘I’m free. I’m free.’”
Mari Hannan documented what was happening on the last day of Tule Lake, March 20, 1946, to people including little Shigemi Ikejiri, both shown in this photo. Ikejiri’s family was then sent to Crystal City, Texas, and deported to Japan. (Photo: Mari Hannan/Courtesy of Helen Hannan Parra)
Others were not so fortunate. Mari Hannan in her writings also described seeing families processed for deportation to the Crystal City Internment Camp before being sent to Japan. Among those families was 1-year-old Shigemi Ikejiri, a girl that Mari Hannan had become particularly close with during her time at Tule Lake. She gave Shigemi two dolls to take with her, which the young girl clutched to her on the final day.
“It surprised me how emotional I got at the end,” said former El Camino High School teacher Janice Wong of the DOR event. “When Helen Hannan Parra talked about how excited people were when they learned they were free, I literally started crying — and the two women in front of me were crying, too.”
The account was part of a program titled “Tule Lake: An Inside Look,” which featured speakers who shared personal stories and historical perspectives on the camp’s complex history.
The event was hosted by David Kiyoshi Tom and opened with remarks from Judge Johnny Cepeda Gogo, who described his 48-Star Flag Project, which has welcomed Japanese American incarceration survivors and their descendants to sign a historic American flag to preserve their stories.
One of the program’s featured speakers was Tule Lake survivor Jim Tanimoto, who will turn 103 in June. Tanimoto is the last surviving member of the “Block 42 Resisters,” a group of men who refused to answer controversial Loyalty Questionnaire questions during the war.
Tanimoto described how the men were threatened with a $10,000 fine, jailed in county facilities and transferred to a Civilian Conservation Corps camp near Tulelake. He also recalled being forced out of their barracks in the middle of the night while guards loaded rifles in front of them.
Author Jan Morrill, whose mother was incarcerated at Tule Lake, discussed several tragic incidents in the camp that illustrated the pressures inmates faced, including the fatal shooting of James Okamoto by a guard who was fined only $1 for “misuse of government property.”
Another speaker, Wayne Merrill Collins, spoke about the legacy of his father, Wayne Mortimer Collins, a San Francisco attorney who spent more than two decades fighting to restore the citizenship of more than 5,400 Japanese Americans who had renounced their citizenship while imprisoned at the Tule Lake Segregation Center.
His efforts ultimately helped thousands reclaim their rights as American citizens.
Another speaker, Yukio Kawaratani, appeared in a prerecorded video. While he, his mother and sisters were imprisoned in the camp, three of his brothers served in the U.S. military, and his father and two brothers were deported to Japan.
The Day of Remembrance event highlighted the personal stories behind one of the most difficult chapters in American history and the importance of preserving them for future generations.
