Vital Lessons Learned at Tule Lake
RAFU WIRE SERVICES
Sunday, Dec. 23, 2007

Teachers experience internment story first hand at training workshops.

Photos courtesy of Tule Lake Committee
Greg Marutani, National JACL Education Committee, leads a discussion at Tulelake High School.

TULE LAKE. Calif.—Although she grew up in Southern Oregon, Kasey Bird was not prepared to teach about the violation of civil rights symbolized by nearby Tule Lake Segregation Camp.

“I basically didn’t know anything. I knew there was an internment camp here but didn’t know any details,” said Bird, a third-grade student teacher at Peterson Elementary School in nearby Klamath Falls.

“(Now) have a pretty good broad overview about what happened and an opportunity to research it further so I can pass it on to kids.”

Bird was one of nearly 30 educators from Northern California and Southern Oregon who gathered last month at Tu­lelake High School for lectures, panel discussions and videos to learn about the internment of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry. Participants received books, sample lesson plans and Web site sources which can also help them in teaching.

Participants and community mem­bers had the opportunity to attend a musical performance and a guided tour of the Tule Lake site in Newell.

“We wanted to reach out to Tulelake and Klamath Falls teachers so they can educate their students about the Japanese American incarceration,” said organizer Barbara Takei. “We also hoped they would develop a interest in preserving the site and its history.”

The efforts of the planners—the Tule Lake Committee, a nonprofit orga­nization dedicated to preserving the Lake Segregation Center and its history, and the Tulelake Unified School District—were not wasted on Beverly Prescott, principal at Klamath Adult Learning Center and Klamath Institute.

Two teachers from her school joined her at the workshop.

“If we are go­ing to teach about liberty and justice and the Consti­tution, then how can we overlook such an obvious example of how we as a nation be­lieve and how we can get confused?” Prescott said.

Prescott grew up in Newell, where her child­hood home was the officers’ rec­reation center, one of the few original Tule Lake buildings that remain.

“My parents owned what is Newell Market and didn’t know what it was,” Prescott said. “So I wanted to learn more and encouraged my teachers to come. If we don’t really dissect the good and the bad, we can’t learn.”

Prescott attended all activities that were offered.

“My favorite part was the narrative,” Prescott said. “Getting the first hand information from people who lived this history is wonderful. The voice of someone who has actually been there has a great deal more weight.”

Prescott referred to the voices of Nikkei who had spent years in Tule Lake: Jimi Yamaichi, Eiko Tanaka Yamaichi, Sadako Kashiwagi, Hiroshi Kashiwagi, Bill Nishimura and Hiroshi
Shimizu. All were on panels moderated by Wayne Maeda, lecturer at Sacramento State University and University of California, Davis. Greg Marutani, member of the National JACL Education Committee, provided teachers with an historical overview and perspectives on the uniqueness of Tule Lake Segregation Center.

Marutani asked the educators to respond to Questions 27 and 28 of the loyalty review program that the incarcerated were asked to answer. The questions of willingness to serve in the armed forces and unqualified allegiance to the U.S. sparked lively discussion among the teachers.

Amanda Mahan, a teacher at Tulelake Elementary School, better understood the resulting segregation at Tule Lake.

“People who said “No” on both questions–they were standing up for their rights and that’s what Americans believe in,” Mahan said. “They had good reasons for answering ‘No.’”

Tifanie Chavez,  a student teacher finishing her education at Southern Oregon University, grew up in nearby Merrill and knew about the site, “but nothing like we learned yesterday.”

“I knew it was here but I never knew anything about it. The history teachers never covered it; the books had just a paragraph,” Chavez said.

“It (workshop) filled in the blanks and made me want the children to know.”

While Chavez listened intently, renunciant Nishimura talked about his father being separated from his family for more than two years while imprisoned in Lordsburg Internment Camp in New Mexico. Shimizu told the group that the imprisonment made his grandfather so depressed that he attempted suicide by drinking gasoline. After his unsuccessful attempt, he refused to speak, Shimizu said.

Sadako Kashiwagi was an eight-year old when imprisoned. She recalled her earlier childhood joy in receiving her very own doll for the first time. But because each person could only take what they could carry, she was forced to leave it behind.

Eiko Yamaichi remembered her first meal in camp: a plate of peas which she tried to eat with a knife, the only utensil she had. Hiroshi Kashiwagi said he gave up his citizenship so his family could remain together. “It was always in the back of my mind,” Kashiwagi said of his uncertain status.

Mahan said she appreciated hearing the stories directly from the people who lived it. “They are living history,” she said. “They can pass it along to us and we can share it with our children.”

Without the workshop, these voices would not have been heard, said Bill Cross, special education teacher at Henley High School in Klamath Falls. “People here aren’t aware of Manzanar and Tule Lake,” Cross said.

I think this training should have been mandatory for teachers, especially in this area.”
There are few local people of color, Cross said.

“The last black teacher before me died in 1963.”

Cross and other teachers joined retired Sacramento teacher Ruth Seo and Tulelake High School history teacher Jim King for a hands-on session in the school’s computer lab. Seo shared a sample lesson plan she used with “Farewell to Manzanar.” Teachers were led to a wealth of sites and incarceration materials available on the Internet.

Sunday, Chavez and others joined Jimi Yamaichi on a tour of the concrete jail. “It made it real. You talk about things, (but) it doesn’t make it real until you walk the grounds, when you hear the personal stories. It has deepened my understanding of the sacrifices and the resilience of the Japanese Americans that were here in the camps,” Chavez said.

The teacher training workshop and the musical production were funded by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program.