Tule Lake National Monument

Both tours for July 10th are now full. Visit our calendar for available tour dates. https://www.nps.gov/tule/planyourvisit/calendar.htm Hurry and reserve your spot today as they are filling up fast. Please call 530-260-0537... Tours are offered every Saturday between Memorial Day and Labor Day beginning at the visitor center located at 800 Main St. Tulelake, Ca. The Segregation Center / Jail tour begins at 10am. The Camp Tulelake tour begins at 1pm. See more

From Friday June 11 - Sunday June 13, please join Amache as they hold their first virtual pilgrimage. https://www.jampilgrimages.com/2021-amache-virtual-pilgrima On Friday (2PM HST / 5PM PDT / 6PM MDT) you can meet your fellow amache pilgrims and join them for a virtual bus ride/watch party of the 30 min PBS video about Amache followed by a social hour with fellow pilgrims.... On Saturday, the "Opening Ceremony" (7AM HST / 10AM PDT / 11AM MDT) will kick off the weekend, followed by "What's Happening at Amache" (11AM HST / 2PM PDT / 3PM MDT), and the day will be closed out with "Special Topic Discussion Groups (1PM HST / 4PM PDT / 5PM MDT). On Sunday, the day begins with "Stories Behind the Objects" (7AM HST / 10AM PDT / 11AM MDT) where you can Hear the stories of Amache artifacts in museum collections, followed by "Power of Place: Finding Your Family Barracks" (9AM HST / 12PM PDT / 1PM MDT), then by "Intergenerational Discussions" (11AM HST / 2PM PDT / 3PM MDT), and finally the "Closing Ceremony" (1PM HST / 4PM PDT / 5PM MDT).

Fred T. Korematsu was a national civil rights hero. In 1942, at the age of 23, he refused to go to the government’s incarceration camps for Japanese Americans. After he was arrested and convicted of defying the government’s order, he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against him. On November 10, 1983, Korematsu’s conviction was overturned in a federal court in San Francisco. It was a pivotal moment in civil rights history.

Besides being Memorial Day, today is also the last day of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. There are many sites, like Tule Lake, that tell their rich, varied, and sometimes difficult, stories. Check out this short YouTube video for a little glimpse of Asian and Pacific Islanders and some of their stories throughout the National Park Service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCyW2pDjOmk Thumbnail image: six uniformed park rangers stand with their backs to the camera against a fence, watching the sun on the horizon.

The Tule Lake National Monument season has begun! The visitor center will be staffed between Memorial Day and Labor Day on Thursdays through Mondays from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. This year, we are excited to be able to show off the restoration efforts made to the Jail. Concrete has been restored, historic graffiti has been preserved, most of the bars, beds and doors have been returned to their original locations, and we now have lights inside the building. Join our ranger guide...d tours to see for yourself. Ranger Guided Tours are offered Saturdays and are limited to a maximum of 10 people per tour this year. To reserve a spot on any tour please call 530-260-0537 or check out our calendar for availability: https://www.nps.gov/tule/planyourvisit/calendar.htm We hope to see you soon!

If you're in Portland check out the exhibition "Healing Nature: Gardens and Art of Manzanar" at the Portland Japanese Garden. This exhibit opened on October 31st and features photos from Toyo Miyatake, Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams. Manzanar was one of two War Relocation Centers in California with the other being the other being the Tule Lake Segregation Center. Around 10,000 people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated there during World War II. Check out the link below ...for more on this exhibit: https://japanesegarden.org//healing-nature-gardens-and-ar/ Thumbnail image: black and white photo of a small stream of water with rocks lining the stream, and various trees and shrubs surrounding it with a mountain range in the background.

The National Museum of the United States Army just opened a new temporary exhibit highlighting the rarely told story of Japanese American Nisei soldiers during WWII. The exhibit highlights their struggles both at home and abroad, their courageous acts on the battlefield, and their recognition culminating in the Congressional Gold Medal. If you can't make it to Fort Belvoir, VA, follow the link below to explore the exhibit from home. https://www.thenmusa.org/exhibit/nise...i-soldier-experience/ Image of a gallery wall with historical photos related to the Congressional Gold Medal.

The Japanese American National Museum and the Consulate General of Japan in Los Angeles announced the introduction of a series of collaborative programs starting with a three-part series, A Taste of Home, with monthly online presentations focused on Japanese American food and its history. The inaugural program, A Taste of Home: A Taste of Home, is scheduled for Sunday, November 15, 2:00pm 3:30pm PST To RSVP for the Free Program, click the link below... https://9644p.blackbaudhosting.com/9644p/tickets Each 90-minute presentation will include instructional videos, hands-on interactive food preparation food workshops and historical and archival content from JANM’s Collection.

Today is Veterans Day, a day we honor those who served. During World War II, Japanese Americans had many roadblocks to serving in the armed forces. They did serve initially in the Hawaii National Guard and Hawaii Territorial Guard, and later in the highly decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team, 100th Infantry Battalion, and as translators and interpreters. Check out this link from Densho for more on their service: http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Japanese_Americans_in_milit/... Thumbnail images of black and white photos of Japanese American soldiers in military uniforms during World War II.

Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program applications are now available! The National Park Service is now accepting applications for the 2021 Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) Grant Program. These matching grants provide financial assistance to organizations and entities working to preserve historic Japanese American confinement sites and their history. Grants will be awarded dependent on funds appropriated by Congress. For more information on eligibility r...equirements and the application process, please visit the JACS Grant Program website at https://www.nps.gov/jacs/application.html. Information is also available on grants.gov (search for Funding Opportunity Number P20AS00098). Fiscal Year 2021 Japanese American Confinement Sites grant applications must be received by Monday, November 9, 2020, 5:00 PM (Mountain Time). Please note: this is not a postmark date. If you have any questions, please contact one of the NPS-JACS regional representatives listed below: Intermountain Region (AZ, CO, MT, NM, OK, TX, UT, WY) Kara Miyagishima (303) 969-2885 [email protected] Midwest Region (AR, IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE,OH,SD,WI) Rachel Franklin Weekley (402) 661-1928 [email protected] Pacific West Region (AK, CA, ID, NV, OR, WA, and other states not listed) Tom Leatherman (510) 778-4171 [email protected]

"They made good use of bad soil." 75 years ago this month, World War II ended with the formal surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. Before World War II, two-thirds of Japanese Americans who lived in the west coast were in the agriculture industry or a related sector. Immigrants from Japan weren't allowed to purchase land, having to buy or lease through their Nisei children, and they weren't given access to land that was of the best quality. Toiling with lower quality land ...continued as they farmed while incarcerated during World War II. George Tsugawa, Janice Munemitsu and others remember their time in camps, their agricultural work and the times where they experienced kindness from new friends in this article from Capital Press. Check out the link below for the full article: https://www.capitalpress.com//article_dce7761e-e9ad-11ea-b Thumbnail image: Black and white photo of a group of 23 men, five standing in the back the remaining seated, at the Lordsburg N.M. Detention Center. Photo courtesy of Tommy Dyo.

Have you ever visited the Pacific Bonsai Museum? Located in Federal Way, Washington, it is one of only two museums in the United States dedicated to bonsai. Bonsai is a tree or shrub grown in a container, creating a miniature version of a full-scale tree or shrub. The Pacific Bonsai Museum currently has an exhibit called "World War Bonsai: Remembrance and Resilience." This exhibit will be featured both this year and next, and explores the bonsai before, during and after World War II in both Japan and the United States, as well as the incarceration of those of Japanese ancestry in the United States. Check out the link below for more information on this exhibit, or make plans to visit in person: https://pacificbonsaimuseum.org/on-view/exhibits/

Teachers and Parents, are you looking for an e-learning tool to teach about Japanese American incarceration during WWII? If so, check out the "Mission US: Prisoner in My Homeland" game and educator guide that are now available! This educational game follows the experiences of teenager Henry Tanaka, whose family is forced to leave their home on Bainbridge Island, WA and sent to Manzanar. Players face many of the same choices and challenges as Japanese Americans did during their unjust incarceration during WWII. Their answers impact how the story proceeds and where Henry is sent following the 1943 questionnaire.

¡Feliz Mes Nacional de la Herencia Hispana! Happy National Hispanic Heritage Month! Every year from September 15th-October 15th, this is a time to celebrate the history, culture and contributions of Americans whose ancestry came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. One unique contribution is that of Ralph Lazo, a Mexican American who voluntarily went to Manzanar. Why did he do it? Lazo experienced his fair share of discrimination as a Latino gro...wing up in Arizona and California. So when his friends of Japanese ancestry were experiencing discrimination, he saw joining them while they were being "relocated" as an act of solidarity. While at Manzanar, Lazo got a job delivering mail, studied Japanese and even became class president. After two years there, he was drafted by the military in August 1944, serving in the Pacific Theater. He remained close to the Japanese American community, and to his conviction that incarcerating them was "..wrong, and I couldn't accept it." According to this article from HISTORY, he is believed to be the only non-Japanese person to go to a relocation center voluntarily and in a non-spousal capacity. https://www.history.com//japanese-internment-camp-ralph-la https://hispanicheritagemonth.gov/about/ Thumbnail image: A black and white photo of Ralph Lazo.

From the abstract of this fascinating article: "The construction of the camp and the incarceration of Japanese Americans disrupted preexisting and largely un-examined notions of the irrigated landscape as a white space. After the war, locals used the physical remnants of the camps to continue developing a white agricultural landscape. This study raises questions about who benefited from state-directed land transformations in the West, whom the nation decided to honor after the war, and how these preferences were etched into the landscape." We are so curious about your thoughts on this. Did farmers and ranchers in the Klamath Basin benefit from government-sponsored white privilege? Or were white lottery winners just 'lucky' and the Japanese folks who were imprisoned at Tule Lake 'unlucky'?

Today is the 100th anniversary of the certification of the 19th amendment to the Constitution. With this, the right for citizens to vote could not be denied on the basis of sex. The 15th amendment 50 years earlier stated that the right of citizens to vote could not be denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." But could all vote? Discrimination still existed at the polls through literary test and poll taxes. There were others who could not even be...come a U.S. citizen to be able to exercise their right to vote. For those of Asian heritage the road to become U.S. citizens and be able to vote was long. The Naturalization Act of 1790 said only a "free, white person," who had been in the United States for two years could become a citizen. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed and similar laws followed to ban immigration from other Asian countries. By 1943 federal policies that kept those of Asian heritage from becoming naturalized citizens began to lift, but at this point 120,000 people of Japanese heritage were in relocation centers throughout the country. Two-thirds of these were U.S. born citizens, and exercised their right to vote as best they could from the locations they were at. Though it was difficult to keep up with the issues and candidates. Doris Hayashi was at the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah, and wrote in her diary that I haven’t been able to do any reading on these issues so it was rather blind voting for me. Later legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 continued to aid in civil rights for all and prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. Is the road of voting discrimination done and at a dead end, or still traveled with road blocks to overcome? #NPS19th #Beyondthe19th #FindYourPark #EncuentraTuParque Photo by Francis Stewart from the National Archives and Records Administration of Alice Fujinaga of Seattle and other incarcerees at the Tule Lake Relocation Center having their absentee ballots notarized, November 2, 1942.

"The parents did not speak of their internment; the sons did not speak of the bomb." Today is the 75th anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. This was the first atomic bomb ever deployed. It immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people, with tens of thousands more dying from radiation exposure. An American survivor of this atomic bomb is Howard Kakita. Born in California, he lived in Hiroshima, Japan with his grandfather and brother, Kenny, from t...he time he was two years old. After 1941, his family back in the United States was sent to a relocation center in Arizona. When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 they assumed Howard and his brother both had perished in the blast. The family were still in camp when they found out both brothers had survived. Howard and his brother were eventually reunited with their family in 1948. It would be years before he could talk about his experience, and Kenny recently told Howard that he still "can't talk about it." Today Howard feels a responsibility to share. He recognizes that as a survivor of the atomic bombs, or "hibakusha," that "the time to tell their story is growing short." Learn more about his story from this Washington Post article below: https://www.washingtonpost.com//howard-kakita-hiroshima-a/

Thanks to Densho for creating this fantastic video! It includes oral history from survivors and a variety of perspectives on resistance at Tule Lake. What questions do you have after watching this? For more information, check out: https://densho.org/understanding-tule-lake/

Effective immediately the Governor of California has ordered all indoor museums to close. Due to our contact station being inside the Tulelake - Butte Valley Fairgrounds Museum, we can no longer staff that location on Saturdays until further notice. Since this is also the starting location for our tours we will not be offering any tours of the Tule Lake Segregation Center or Camp Tulelake at this time. You can still learn about the the national monument by reading the brochures on our website at www.nps.gov/tule.

The next few days mark the celebration of Bon Odori throughout Japan, and in many communities along the West Coast. From Densho, we know that many Bon Odori festivals were held at other prison camps during WWII. But we are not sure if these celebrations happened at Tule Lake. Do you have a relative that remembers celebrating Bon Odori at Tule Lake? https://densho.org/photo-essay-bon-odori-time/ Photo by Bill Manbo/ Courtesy of Takao Bill Manbo/University of North Carolina Press/Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, as found on https://www.npr.org//a-dark-chapter-of-american-history-ca

As staffing allows, beginning Saturday, July 11th, we will start having Rangers at our contact station inside the Tulelake - Butte Valley Fairgrounds on Saturdays. This also means the museum of local history at the fairgrounds will be open from 8:00 am - 4:30 pm. If we are unable to staff the contact station on an up coming Saturday, we will do our best to post that information on this account. We hope to resume tours of the jail and Camp Tulelake later this summer. Please stay tuned for more information.

Today is Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. It commemorates freedom of African Americans and emphasizes education and achievement. To learn more about national park units that interpret African American heritage check out the link below: https://www.nps.gov/subj/africanamericanheritage/index.htm Thumbnail image: historic black and white photo of students of African heritage sitting in a classroom.

Week 1 is just getting started. Don't miss out on this first ever virtual pilgrimage. To register go to https://www.jampilgrimages.com/virtualpilgrimageregistratio