I imagine many of you know the story of James Hatsuaki Wakasa, the man who a sentry killed while Wakasa was walking with his dog along the barbed wire fence surrounding the Topaz (Central Utah) incarceration camp during World War II. This happened on April 11, 1943, during the period when camp inmates were being […]
Cedrick Shimo, WWII military resister and Honda exec, dies at 100
April 9, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Cedrick Masaki Shimo, a World War II military resister and an executive at American Honda Motors, USA, passed away peacefully on April 1, 2020. He was 100. Shimo was the only child born to Tamori and Yoshiko Urakami Shimo, both from Okayama, Japan, in Heber, Calif., in the Imperial Valley. At the time, his father […]
TULE LAKE ICON PASSES: Hiroshi Kashiwagi was a noted poet, playwright, author, actor and symbol of wartime resistance
November 7, 2019 by Leave a Comment
When Hiroshi Kashiwagi was born in a boarding house in Sacramento, Calif. on Nov. 8, 1922, no one imagined that he would become a successful activist, writer, playwright, actor, and a poet of such regard that he would be known as the “Poet Laureate of Tule Lake.†Although his first book, “Swimming in the American: […]
Isao Tanaka, photographer and ‘No-no,’ dies
November 7, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Isao Tanaka, a so-called “No-no†who resisted the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans and took countless community photographs that were featured in various media, passed away peacefully at his San Francisco home on Oct. 27, 2019. He was 93. He was born the eldest of four children of Satsumi and Sasaichi Tanaka in Santa Maria, […]
JACL votes to apologize to ‘Tule Lake resisters’
August 29, 2019 by Leave a Comment
The Japanese American Citizens League voted Aug. 3 at its 50th National Convention in Salt Lake City to offer an apology to the “Tule Lake resisters†for its past ostracism of the group of protestors in the Northern California barbed wire concentration camp during World War II. The contentious resolution addressing the national civil rights […]
Japanese American Citizens League considers apology to Tule Lake resisters
July 18, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Nearly two decades after passing a resolution addressing its past skeletons, a national Japanese American organization is once again set to confront its controversial actions during the war. The National Council of the Japanese American Citizens League plans to discuss a resolution to apologize to the Tule Lake resisters at the 50th JACL National Convention […]
Nikkei literary pioneer re-examined
July 19, 2018 by Leave a Comment
JOHN OKADA: THE LIFE AND REDISCOVERED WORK OF THE AUTHOR OF NO-NO BOY Edited by Frank Abe, Greg Robinson and Floyd Cheung (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018, 376 pp., $29.95 paperback, $90 hardcover) For Japanese American writers and readers, John Okada is our Lady Murasaki — the first to have produced a book-length piece […]
Let’s Talk … About standing up
February 1, 2018 by 1 Comment
I’m here in Honolulu to assist in interviewing my friend and inspiration, Mr. Hitoshi “Hank†Naito, a 93-year-young Nisei man whom I met several years ago while working on a documentary film about my family’s experience at Tule Lake, Calif. during World War II. Confronted with the so-called “loyalty questionnaire,†Hank’s Issei father had worked […]
JAs launch petition to prevent fence at Tule Lake
September 28, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Filmmaker (“Children of the Camps†and “From a Silk Cocoon: A Japanese American Renunciation Storyâ€) and licensed therapist Satsuki Ina has started an online petition to stop the proposed fence at the Tulelake Municipal Airport, the site of the former Tule Lake Segregation Center, where persons of Japanese descent were incarcerated during World War II. […]
Boxer introduces bill designating Tule Lake camp as National Historic Site
January 1, 2016 by Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) on Dec. 17 introduced legislation to establish the former Tule Lake concentration camp as a National Historic Site managed by the National Park Service, a statement from Boxer’s office said. Tule Lake was the largest “War Relocation Authority†camp during World War II, incarcerating nearly 19,000 persons of […]
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