Tule Lake War Relocation Center
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Tule Lake War Relocation Center was an internment camp in the northern California town of Newell near Tule Lake. It was used in the Japanese-American internment during World War II. It was one of the largest and most notorious of the camps, and did not close until after the war, in 1946.
Among the Japanese Americans interned at Tule Lake were internees from other camps who refused to take a vow of undivided loyalty to the U.S. and were sent to this "Segregation Camp". Anti-American sentiment was high, with several demonstrations against the internment policy and many residents renouncing their U.S. citizenship. A number of those who were sent to Tule Lake had found the loyalty oath's questions confusing, while others, certain that they were to be deported to Japan no matter how they had answered, feared that answering the questions in the affirmative would cause them to be seen as enemy aliens by the Japanese.
Starting in 1974, Tule Lake was the site of several pilgrimages by activists calling for an official apology from the U.S. government. This Redress Movement culminated in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The pilgrimages, serving educational purposes, continue to this day.
On December 21, 2006 President Bush signed H.R. 1492 into law guaranteeing $38,000,000 in federal money to restore the Tule Lake relocation center along with nine other former Japanese internment camps. "H.R. 1492".
[edit] External links
- Tule Lake Committee History, photos, and VR panoramas.
- National Park Service: Confinement and Ethnicity (Chapter 15) Camp plan and photos.
[edit] Written works about Tule Lake
- To The Stars, autobiography of actor George Takei, who was interned (as a child) at Tule Lake because of the answers which his mother had given on the infamous "Loyalty Questionnaire."
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