Tule Lake History

As a method to separate the loyal from the disloyal, the questionnaire asked two clumsily worded questions. The questions, number 27 and 28, caused sharp conflicts and division within each camp, and led to agonizing turmoil within many families. This questionnaire became known as the loyalty review program, which initiated the most wrenching and divisive crisis of the entire incarceration, and led to creation of the high-security, conflict-ridden Tule Lake Segregation Center.

Question 27 asked, “Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?” Question 28 asked, “Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?”

Inmates stewed over the questionnaire with a combination of resentment, confusion and suspicion. If its purpose was to determine loyalty, why had it not been given earlier in the Army’s temporary concentration camps? Inmates puzzled over the meaning of the wording, wondering if a “yes” to 27 meant that the respondent was volunteering. Were they being asked to fight for freedom and democracy while their families remained imprisoned without cause? Was 28 a trick question, with a “yes” implying the respondent was, at some time, loyal to the emperor? For the Issei, who were legally defined as “aliens ineligible for citizenship,” would a “yes” leave them stateless? Could the government be asking for their unqualified allegiance after smearing all persons of Japanese descent with mistrust and suspicion?
 
After mistreatment, discriminatory laws, forced eviction and imprisonment, a loyalty litmus test seemed cruel and perverse. Each person of Japanese descent was challenged to swallow their anger and humiliation at such unfair treatment. Many could not and either refused to register or answered the loyalty questions “no-no.” Refusal to fill out the questionnaire was defined as disloyalty. “No” responses were treated as proof of disloyalty. If one gave “yes” answers but wrote in qualifying comments like, “if my family is freed” or “if our rights are returned,” such qualifiers were treated as evidence of disloyalty.

At Tule Lake, hundreds of young men resisted the demand they respond to Questions 27 and 28. Threatened with violating the Espionage Act, $10,000 fines and 20 years in prison, protesters were imprisoned in County jails in Alturas and Klamath Falls, and removed to the Camp Tulelake CCC camp, where protesters feared harm from trigger-happy guards armed with machine guns. 
 
Refusal to answer or “No” answers were viewed as proof of disloyalty, and resulted in removal to Tule Lake, which became the Segregation Center because it had the highest proportion of persons who answered “No” to 27 and 28.  The Japanese American Citizens League harshly condemned “No-Nos” as disloyal troublemakers, believing the situation demanded a strong show of loyalty to America.
 
The Army had hoped to recruit 3,500 men from the WRA camps to serve in the segregated all-Nisei combat unit. Only 1,181 volunteered. From Tule Lake, only 57 inmates volunteered to enlist in the Army. Many did volunteer or enlist in the military before 1942, but were discharged after Pearl Harbor or reclassified as 4-C, “enemy aliens.” Now they and their families were locked up indefinitely. Why should they volunteer, many wondered? 
 
In Hawaii, where there was no mass incarceration, the Army expected 1,500 volunteers. Nearly 10,000 Japanese Americans quickly volunteered – ultimately forming the Nisei l00/442nd Regimental Combat Team, distinguished as the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. military history. Some 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the military during World War II, including 2,800 Nisei who were drafted while imprisoned in American concentration camps.