Proposed fence divides people at Tule Lake internment camp

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

During World War II, the Tule Lake internment camp housed almost 20,000 people, the vast majority of whom were Americans of Japanese descent.

ASAM NEWS

A PLAN to fence off Tule Lake, the involuntary home of nearly 19,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned during WWII has raised fears the historical site will be endangered. 
The Herald and News reports Modoc County in California has proposed building a 16,000 feet, eight-feet tall perimeter around the nearby airport to keep wildlife off the runway. In so doing, the fence partitions off part of the former internment camp, which has been designated a California Historic Landmark and a National Historic Landmark.
 
“The fence is a desecration of a site we feel is spiritual, a site where people go to mourn, a site that is for remembrance,” said Barbara Takei, CFO of the Tule Lake Committee, said to the Sacramento Bee. “With the fence, we will be shut out from where our families lived and permanently reminded of the racism and hostility that put us there in the first place.”
 
Negotiations around the fence lasted 18 months and ended with no agreement. The county is currently seeking public comment and those interested have until October 10 to submit those comments.

More information about how to send in your opinions can be found on Facebook.

“I think there’s a need for everyone to come to the table and see how we can move forward,” said Mike Ishi, another member of the Tule Lake Committee. “We’re not trying to destroy people’s livelihoods. I try to stay very open and sensitive to the local perspective. But this is a site that has international importance. People come from all over the world to see that site.”
 
Both sides criticize the other for inferring that racist motives are behind their respective positions for and against the fence. 
 
“We’re not trying to keep people out. We’re trying to keep people safe,” said Nick Macy of Macy’s Flying Service.
 
If approved, the earliest the fence would be built is October 2019.
________________________________________________________________________________

75th Ann'y of WWII; Philippine chapter to be included in California history textbooks

The story of how Sgt. Jose Calugas of the Philippine Scouts, a U.S. Army unit, earned the U.S. Medal of Honor may be included in California's new textbooks.

YEARS BEFORE last month's passage of AB2016, which mandated the teaching of ethnic studies in California schools, AB199 was passed in the state legislature to require teaching the role of Filipinos and Filipino/Americans played in World War II.

Although approved by the state legislature in 2011, it was not until July of this year that State Board of Education approved the curriculum that would teach this largely ignored topic in California classrooms because of the tendency of most U.S. school books to view history through an Eurocentric persepctive.

In 2014, the Bataan Legacy Historical Society (BLHS) started working with the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) of the California Department of Education to implement AB199. 

RELATED: Ethnic studies mandated for California schools

With the support of State Superintendent Tom Torlakson, BLHS was able to expand the scope of the proposed curriculum framework to include World War II in the Philippines. On May 19, 2016, the IQC’s History Social Sciences Committee approved all of the recommendations made by BLHS.

Torlakson is married to Mae Cendana Torlakson, who is seeking to become California's first Filipina/American Assembly member in this November's election.

Chapter 16 of the 11th Grade U.S. History will include the following: 

• The Philippine Commonwealth; the creation of the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) comprised of Americans and a majority of Filipinos;
• the disruption of the timetable of the Imperial Japanese Army by the USAFFE Forces despite suffering from massive disease and starvation and fighting without any air support; 
• The Bataan Death March and the thousands of casualties; the role of the Filipino and American guerrillas during the liberation; 
• The American soldiers who were transported in hell ships to labor camps in Asia; 
• The Battles of Leyte Gulf;
• The destruction of Manila during a month-long battle to liberate the city, which resulted in a death toll comparable to that of the Tokyo firebombing or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and inflicted more damage than the Luftwaffe bombing of London.

After the WWII Battle of Manila, there was almost nothing left to liberate

RELATED: 

• Details announced for Filipino WWII vets reuniting with families
•  A shameful anniversary for the U.S. Congress
•  Memorial Day - Another try to pass the Filipino Veterans Family Reunification Act

It is believed that this will  be the first time that the Filipino role in fighting WWII in the Philippines will be taught to high school students in the United States.

California’s new history curriculum framework has the potential to act as a model for teaching this seminal point of WWII history in the U.S. BLHS has formed a curriculum steering committee to create a sample curriculum template that schools can use to implement Chapter 16 of the Grade 11 U.S. History.

###

National Park Service issues grants to preserve Japanese American internment camps

Monument to the Dead at Manzanar,  Calif., erected in 1943 by Japanese American internees.

GRANTS worth $2.8 million  from the National Park Service will go a long way to ensure that the lessons learned from the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II will never be forgotten. The National Park Service awarded a two-year $321,554 grant to CSU Dominguez Hills, which is serving as the principal investigator for the CSU Japanese American Digitization Project.  Archives at 15 California State Universities are collaborating to digitize nearly 10,000 documents and more than 100 oral histories related to the confinement of Japanese Americans during World War II. The project will make these materials available on a CSU-sponsored website and also result in a teaching guide and traveling exhibit for schools and the public. The grant was one of 20 awarded by the National Park Service totaling more than $2.8 million to help preserve and interpret the World War II confinement sites of the 120,000 Japanese Americans, who were imprisoned by the U.S. government following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. “As stewards of our nation’s history, the National Park Service recognizes the importance of preserving these confinement sites,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis.  Many campuses throughout the CSU system were located near California’s internment camps and Japanese American communities. Throughout the last half century, their archives, libraries, oral history projects and history departments have collected archival and manuscript materials, objects, and media relating to Japanese internment that have yet to be digitized. With the grant money, participating CSU archives at Bakersfield, Channel Islands, Dominguez Hills, East Bay, Fresno, Fullerton, Long Beach, Northridge, Sacramento, San Jose, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, and Sonoma will digitize and catalog their records. The park service grant amounts range from $16,000 awarded to the Friends of the Texas Historical Commission, Inc., to research and document a 70-year-old mural that was painted by an internee at the Seagoville Internment Camp (INS Detention Station) in Dallas County, Texas, to $400,000 for New York’s public media station WNET to create “Prisoner in My Homeland,” a series of free online educational video games to engage middle school-age students with the history of Japanese American incarceration during World War II. Grants from the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program can go to the 10 War Relocation Authority centers established in 1942 or to more than 40 other confinement sites. The goal of the program is to teach present and future generations about the injustice of the World War II confinement history and inspire a commitment to equal justice under the law.  “They are poignant reminders – today and for future generations – that we must be always vigilant in upholding civil liberties for all," says Jarvis. "These grants help us share valuable lessons on the fragility of our constitutional rights and ensure the experiences of those who were incarcerated are not forgotten.” ###