Tule Lake History

Repression and Resistance at Tule Lake

Squalid housing and sanitation, unsafe working conditions, and inadequate food and medical care at the Tule Lake Segregation Center led to increasing dissatisfaction.  The Center was soon wracked by work stoppages, labor disputes and demonstrations. On November 1, 1943, a crowd estimated at 5,000 to 10,000 inmates gathered near the administration area to show interest and support for camp leaders meeting with WRA administrators. The mass gathering of Japanese Americans alarmed the Caucasian staff and led to construction of a barbed wire fence to separate the colony from the WRA administrative personnel.  The Army was poised to take over the camp in case of trouble, with tanks lined up in a display of potential force. On November 4, 1943, disputes over truckloads of food taken from the warehouse led to the Army takeover of the camp. Martial law was imposed and was continued until January 15, 1944

The imposition of martial law and the sweep of Tule Lake’s popularly elected leaders into a military stockade led to questions of what future Japanese Americans had in a country that showed so little regard for them?  Within days of martial law ending, in what seemed a perverse test of how much government hypocrisy would be endured, the Army began issuing draft notices.  At Tule Lake, 27 inmates resisted notice to report for their physicals and were put on trial for violating the Selective Service Act.  U.S. District Judge Louis Goodman dismissed the charges against Tule Lake’s draft resisters, and in his July 1944 opinion, United States v. Masaaki Kuwabara, expressed outrage.  “It is shocking to the conscience that an American citizen be confined on the ground of disloyalty and then, while so under duress and restraint, be compelled to serve in the armed forces, or be prosecuted for not yielding to such compulsion.” The draft resisters were released and returned to captivity in Tule Lake.