Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites

Chapter 13: Tule Lake Relocation Center, California

Chapter 13 Tule Lake Relocation Center The Tule Lake Relocation Center is in Modoc County, California , 35 miles southeast ofKlamath Falls, Oregon, and about 10 miles from the town of Tulelake. The town is spelled as one word and the relocation center as two. The post office designation for the relocation center was Newell, the name ofthe post office, general store, and gas station at a nearby crossroads. The relocation center reserve, which encompassed 7,400 acres, is presently a mix of public, state, and private land (Figures 13.1 and 13.2). Situated in the Klamath Valley, the Tule Lake Relocation Center was located within an underdeveloped federal reclamation district, authorized in 1905. The Modoc Project was begun in the Klamath Reclamation District in 1920 to drain Tule Lake for use as farm land. By 1941,3,500 acres offormer lake bed were under cultivation Oacoby 1996). Large remnants ofTule Lake, now a National Wildlife Refuge, lie within a few miles of the relocation center site. 279 The lacustrine geology is evident: the relocation center site and surrounding area is flat and treeless, and the sandy loam soil is interspersed with the abundant remains offreshwater mollusks. To the south and west vulcanism is prominent: Tule Lake was just north of lava flows emanating from the Medicine Lake Highlands, the easternmost promontory of the Cascade Range. An BOO-foot-high bluff, called the Peninsula, is composed of volcanic tuff that was extruded within Pleistocene Tule Lake. The Peninsula lies just south of the developed central area of the relocation center, and there are other smaller bluffs to the north and east. Lava Beds National Monument includes two areas southwest of the relocation center, one just south ofthe Peninsula and another, much larger area at the northern end of the Medicine Lake Highlands. Fifty miles south on a clear day 14,000 foot Mt. Shasta is visible (Figure 13.3). At an elevation of 4,000 feet, the winters at Tule Lake are long and cold and the summers hot and dry. The vegetation consists of a sparse growth of grass, tules, and sagebrush. PRIVATI: PRIVATI: TUlE LAKE RELOCATION CENTER Land Status - February 2000 o 1 KILOMETER ~----: 0-------0:5 MILES Figure 13.1. Land status, Tule Lake Relocation Center and vicinity. 280 Farm Nea No. 2 Relocation Center Boundary I \ I \ I iI \ I\~§i§ ~I~ \ Inscriptions I \ I I I \ I \ I \ Figure 13.2. Tule Lake Relocation Center. 281 TULE LAKE RELOCATION CENTER 1 KIlOMETER :=="='="==rO.'5--'~lES t N I Figure 13.3. Tule Lake and Mt. Shasta. Construction of the Tule Lake Relocation Center began April 15, 1942. On May 25, the first Japanese Americans, 500 volunteers from the Portland and Puyallup Assembly Centers, arrived to help set up the relocation center Oacoby 1996). When the WRA later decided to send the evacuees at the Portland and Puyallup Assembly Centers to Minidoka rather than Tule Lake, some ofthese first volunteers decided to stay anyway since being the first to arrive they had good jobs. Most of the evacuees at Tule Lake were from the Marysville, Pinedale, Pomona, Sacramento, and Salinas Assembly Centers. In addition, a large number of evacuees were sent directly to the relocation center from the southern San Joaquin Valley without first going to an assembly center. From the start, the Tule Lake Relocation Center was plagued by problems and discontent. Within 5 months of its opening there was a mess hall strike to protest inadequate food, a farm strike, and a general strike (Kowta 1976). Additional problems arose when, in 282 response to public and congressional criticism, the WRA decided to segregate the "disloyals" from the "loyals" with a poorly-worded questionnaire. Those who answered "no" to the two loyalty questions were considered "disloyal." When some 35 Nisei from the same block who had applied for repatriation toJapan failed to answer the questionnaire by an arbitrary deadline, the military police surrounded their block and arrested them. Over the next two months over 100 more evacuees were arrested and housed in nearby jails and an old Civilian Conservation Corps (Ccq camp 5 miles west ofthe relocation center (see Chapter 15). Measured by the questionnaire results, Tule Lake had the highest proportion of disloyals of all the Relocation Centers. While the average number of "no-no's" at other centers was 10 percent, at Tule Lake 42 percent did not answer the questionnaire...