Loyalty and Betrayal Reconsidered: the Tule Lake Pilgrimage
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 6-9-2016 "Yes, No, Maybe": Loyalty and Betrayal Reconsidered: The uleT Lake Pilgrimage Ella-Kari Loftfield Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds Recommended Citation Loftfield, Ella-Kari. ""Yes, No, Maybe": Loyalty and Betrayal Reconsidered: The uleT Lake Pilgrimage." (2016). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/47 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Ella-Kari Loftfield Candidate History Department This thesis is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Thesis Committee: Professor Melissa Bokovoy, Chairperson Professor Jason Scott Smith Professor Barbara Reyes i “YES, NO, MAYBE−” LOYALTY AND BETRAYAL RECONSIDERED: THE TULE LAKE PILGRIMAGE By Ella-Kari Loftfield B.A., Social Anthropology, Haverford College, 1985 THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2016 ii Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my father, Robert Loftfield whose enthusiasm for learning and scholarship knew no bounds. iii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of many people. Thanks to Peter Reed who has been by my side and kept me well fed during the entire experience. Thanks to the Japanese American National Museum for inviting me to participate in curriculum writing that lit a fire in my belly. Thanks to Martha Fenstermacher and the Teaching American History grant that paid for a good portion of this degree. Thanks to Lore Loftfield DeBower who was not my first but my most devoted editor and proofreader. Thanks to all of the staff at the UNM Department of History who filled in paperwork I had overlooked and helped me manage missed deadlines. But most of all, thanks to Professor Melissa Bokovoy who introduced me to an entirely new field of research, the field of commemorative studies. Her support and encouragement, and the occasional huevos rancheros at The Frontier always came at just the right time. iv “YES, NO, MAYBE−” LOYALTY AND BETRAYAL RECONSIDERED: THE TULE LAKE PILGRIMAGE By ELLA-KARI LOFTFIELD B.A., Social Anthropology, Haverford College, 1985 ABSTRACT This project aims to explain how the contemporary Tule Lake Committee commemorates and honors the Japanese Americans who found themselves incarcerated at the Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California after “failing” the loyalty questionnaire administered to them by the War Relocation Authority during World War II. The Tule Lake Committee holds biennial pilgrimages which have become increasingly popular in the last decade. A “thick description” of the 2010 pilgrimage and an analysis of the pilgrimage themes shows how the Tule Lake Committee honors the experience of Japanese Americans whose history was written out of the collective memory in the post war years. This reinsertion of dissent into the collective memory of the wartime experience of Japanese Americans by the Tule Lake Committee highlights the importance of analyzing history from all perspectives. v Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 A Clarification of Terms ............................................................................................... 3 An Acknowledgement of the Sources and the Use of Names ...................................... 6 The Disclosure ............................................................................................................ 10 Social Memory Studies ............................................................................................... 15 The Memorialization of the Japanese American World War II Experience ............... 22 Chapter 1 – A History of Injustice: Discrimination, Internment, Loyalty, Segregation, Draft, Renunciation .................................................................................................. 30 Early Immigration and a History of Racism against the Japanese .............................. 32 Response to the Attack on Pearl Harbor ..................................................................... 35 Detention Shifts Power within the Community .......................................................... 37 The Loyalty Questionnaire ......................................................................................... 41 Segregation, Draft, and Renunciation ......................................................................... 47 Chapter 2 – Establishing a Narrative of Patriotism and Resiliency ................................ 54 The JACL and the Postwar Narrative: Organizational Carriers of Memory .............. 56 Governmental Collusion ............................................................................................. 63 Silence Dominates Individual Lives ........................................................................... 64 Other Narratives Fade ................................................................................................. 66 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 3 – Challenging the Historic Narrative as Incomplete ....................................... 77 Civil Rights Era: Empowerment and Identity ............................................................. 78 Nisei Lobby for Legislative Changes ............................................................. 79 vi Students Seek Identity and Solidarity ............................................................. 82 Historians Revisit the Narrative ...................................................................... 87 Two Nisei Women Draw Attention to the Story ............................................ 89 Farewell to Manzanar ......................................................................... 89 Years of infamy: The untold story of America’s concentration camps ................................................................................................. 90 The Impact on the Narrative ........................................................................... 92 Redress Era: Activists Force the Government to Reconsider the History .................. 94 Activists Call for Redress ............................................................................... 95 The Commission, Their Charge, Their Process .............................................. 99 The Government Dramatically Alters the Official History .......................... 100 Other aspects of the narrative remain ............................................... 104 Significance of the commission and the report ................................. 106 Impact on the Narrative ................................................................................ 107 Chapter 4 – Experiencing the Narrative at Tule Lake .................................................... 115 The Sources for the Historic Tule Lake Pilgrimage ................................................. 117 Richard Katsuda ............................................................................................ 118 Stan Shikuma ................................................................................................ 119 Sachiko Takita .............................................................................................. 120 Early Pilgrimages Stir an Awakening ....................................................................... 121 Early Tule Lake Committee Promotes Education and Activism .................. 124 The Tule Lake Committee and the Pilgrimage in Transition ....................... 135 Some Lasting Changes from a Decade of Transition ................................... 140 vii Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 142 Chapter 5 – Protecting and Preserving a Unique Site of Segregation ........................... 148 Memorialization Debate Continues .......................................................................... 149 The Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism Controversy ..................... 149 The Narrative Continues to Broaden ............................................................ 153 Counter definitions of patriotism ...................................................... 153 An apology from the JACL............................................................... 154 Grants promote deeper understanding .............................................. 155 The perfect storm .............................................................................. 156 The Tule Lake Committee Reorganized ................................................................... 156 Satsuki Ina ..................................................................................................... 158 Hiroshi Shimizu ............................................................................................ 160 Barbara Takei ................................................................................................ 162 Impact of the New Leadership .....................................................................