Tule Lake
Internment Camp
Tule Lake National Monument Visitor Center
800 Main St, Tulelake, CA 96134
June 7, 2019
Last week we stopped at Tule Lake National Monument, a War Relocation Center in Northern California where more than 18,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly confined, separated from their homes, families, and livelihoods. They were subjected to poor living conditions in a harsh climate, crammed into barracks and given little if any privacy. More than two-thirds of these inmates were American citizens. But regardless of citizenship, these were people who committed no crime, suffering only for their ethnicity. They were discriminated against due to fear, hysteria, and racism. Once in the camps a biased questionnaire was used to determine loyalty, not unlike the citizenship question this administration hopes to add to the census. Tule Lake was turned into a Segregation Center in 1943, becoming a maximum security facility, adding prisoners from other camps considered disloyal or disruptive to the existing Tule Lake population. Poor and unsanitary living conditions triggered prisoner protests at Tule Lake, leading the US Army to impose martial law at the camp.
After the war when the inmates were eventually released, all they were given was a bus ticket and $20. We cannot allow our nation to be one that puts innocent people in cages. Today migrant children are being separated from their families and held in prisons. We cannot allow ours to be a nation that lives in fear of others or that feels we hold privilege over others. Those Japanese Americans deserved civil rights. Those Japanese who were not citizens deserved dignity and fair treatment. Our immigrant population today deserves civil rights. Refugees are not illegal. We need to stand up for those experiencing racism and hate. Love is the answer. When we allow someone’s rights to be taken, we give up part of our own humanity. #NationOfImmigrants#RacismHurtsEveryone#AmericaBeKind#DignityForAll
