By Leonard Chan

The following are some of my remembrances from the 2018 Tule Lake Pilgrimage. I had gone on this trip to accompany Mas Hongo (one of the former heads of AACP), who had been interned at this site. It was both a reunion of sorts and opportunity to display and sell books for the organizers and attendees. While Mas had gone to a number of these pilgrimages, this was my first to this site.

For those of you, who have never heard of this event and don't know of the significance of this location, let me give you a very brief summary.

In May of 1942, Tule Lake became one of ten World War II concentration camps run by the United States War Relocation Authority (WRA). There were quite a few other camps that were operated by other government agencies (including Japanese Latinos that were brought to the US against their will – read our April 2005 article “The Little Told World War II Internment Story”), but the WRA ran some of the biggest ones. They were created to isolate and lock away West Coast Japanese Americans. I use the term Japanese Americans here to describe all people of Japanese ancestry living in the US, even though not all were technically citizens. This is my personal preference since the non-citizens among them were not allowed to become naturalized citizens.

After the internees were surveyed with the infamous “Loyalty Questionnaire” in early 1943, Tule Lake later became a Segregation Center to house the internees from the ten camps that were classified as disloyal or potentially disruptive. Thus it became the internment camp with perhaps the most problematic of situations as even the internees there began to turn on each other over their levels of cooperation and protest with the authorities of the camp.

There are a number of good books and descriptions online about The Tule Lake Relocation/Incarceration Center. I’ll try to list some of them at the end of this article.

The Tule Lake Pilgrimage started in 1969 and continued sporadically until 1992, when it became a biyearly event up until the start of the pandemic. This year will be the first year for the Tule Lake Pilgrimage since 2018. There’s a pretty good description of the Tule Lake Pilgrimage and other such pilgrimages’ history on the Densho Encyclopedia’s website.

Many of the camps have had some sort of organized pilgrimages to the actual sites for some time now. Attendees of the pilgrimages at first, tended to be college activists, former internees, and or their family members. In more recent years, curious and interested individuals from all walks of life have also attended them. When I went to the Tule Lake Pilgrimage, I met historians, filmmakers, activists, and even people from Japan, including students, news crews, and diplomats. One particular Japanese news crew interviewed Mas at great length since he was able to speak Japanese and was one of the eldest attendees at that pilgrimage.

The cost of attending The Tule Lake Pilgrimage includes bus rides from key locations up and down the West Coast. A number of the pickup locations were at or near some of the same locations where the internees were first ordered to board buses bound for assembly centers back in 1942 (most the internees were first moved to temporary assembly centers before their eventual move to the ten WRA camps).

While waiting at our stop in San Francisco’s Japantown, I tried to imagine what it may have been like back then – not knowing where you were heading and for how long, being ordered to take only what you could carry, and having armed military guards around you. Some of the internees like Mas were even separated from their families and may have been surrounded by strangers and strange surroundings. Mas, who was born and raised in Hawaii, was attending college in Sacramento at the start of the war and was thus incarcerated along with the others.

My experience on this trip was going to be far different from Mas’ and the other internees’ experience 76 years earlier.

I’m not sure when I first heard of Tule Lake or of pilgrimages to these concentration camps. My first major exposure to the whole subject of the Japanese American World War II experience was probably when I saw the TV movie of Farewell to Manzanar in 1976. Ironically one of the technical advisors for that movie was Edison Uno, who was one of the founders of Japanese American Curriculum Project (AACP’s original name).

When I was on the bus to the Tule Lake Pilgrimage, we were asked to introduce ourselves and mention something about why we were there. I had mentioned my viewing of the Farewell to Manzanar and its connection with AACP. So it was AACP that literally brought me there that day.

On the bus ride, many of the passengers came prepared with snacks to share with the other riders. We watched some related films about the internment and made origami paper cranes for the memorial service that would be held on the next day.

For the buses coming from the Bay Area and Sacramento, we stopped for lunch at the Redding First United Methodist Church. The members of the church were prepared for us and had apparently been doing this for a number of previous pilgrimages. I remember asking some of the church volunteers if they had ever joined in on the pilgrimage and they said they had not. I was thinking that for their hospitality and support, they were the ideal people to be asked to join the pilgrimage. I’m not sure if this year’s pilgrimage organizers invited them, but I still think it would be a good idea to include them some day.

By late afternoon or evening (we were stuck in a traffic jam somewhere along the Oregon-California border), we finally reached our destinations of Klamath Falls, Oregon. Klamath Falls is the nearest major town near the Tule Lake Segregation Center site located at the far northeast corner of California.

The pilgrimage organizers had arranged to use the college campus of the Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) which was in summer break. OIT would be the base for the pilgrimage. It was where we had our overnight accommodation and meal, and where we would attend workshops, lectures, and performances. This was also the location where AACP would setup our book displays.

On our second day, we all took bus rides to the actual Tule Lake camp site. Some of the more adventurous attendees left early for the site to go on a hike to a nearby peak called Castle Rock (https://www.nps.gov/places/tule-lake-castle-rock.htm), so named because the rock formations resembled a castle turret. If you ever see photos, of the old Tule Lake camp site, you’ll often see this peak in the distance. Castle Rock supposedly has great views of the camp site, but I was not among the adventurous.

The memorial service was held near the infamous Tule Lake jail, one of the few original buildings left standing in the actual site. Tule Lake’s jail was a jail within the incarceration site. So it was essentially a jail within the jail. Much is written and documented about its use and role during the incarceration.

I can’t remember the details of the service, but it was a solemn Buddhist and Christian service to remember those that had died at Tule Lake. After the service, the former internees sat, while others in attendance stood behind them, for a photo. Many held signs in support of immigrants that were being imprisoned and poorly treated at the border during this time.

Following the memorial service we had lunch at a nearby fair ground. One of the things I remembered about lunch was that some of the attendees got up to do some impromptu Bon Odori dances. The Obon Festival was something the internees continue to practice during their incarceration at many of the camps.

After lunch we had the option to do a variety of activities. Mas and I chose to take the camp tour which was given by the National Park Service rangers. Our guide told us of how she was living in a former camp barrack that had been converted into a house. Many of the former barracks were sold off to locals after the war and were repurposed for houses and farm buildings.

On the tour, we got to see some barracks that were still standing at a location near the main incarceration center called Camp Tulelake. This location was first built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935, but was later used by internees sent there as punishment for protesting and were made to work on special work detail.

On the tour of the main site, we also got to see the foundation of a latrine block. The camp latrine toilets were often written about in biographies about how they were spaced near each other with no privacy barriers. They were indeed spaced very close together.

One of the things I noticed was how expansive Tule Lake was. Maps and photos of the camps don’t do justice to how big they were. When I had visited another incarceration center in Poston, Arizona, much of the camp grounds were totally hidden, since much of that site had been taken over by farms. I remember asking Mas about how he was able to find his way around since all the barracks looked alike and getting from place to place must have taken awhile by foot.

At the end of our tour we all returned to OIT for dinner and later a performance by the Grateful Crane Ensemble, an acting troupe headed by the son of former internee Hiroshi Kashiwagi (we published three of Hiroshi’s books, including the award winning “Swimming in the American”).

The third day of the pilgrimage was like a conference. There were workshops, group discussions, and film screenings.

Mas and I attended a group discussion session where those in attendance got to talk with internees. Later we attended a panel discussion on author John Okada and his classic book “No-No Boy.” Author Frank Abe, who wrote a biography on Okada, did a book signing for us after the discussion.

After dinner, all of the attendees attended a cultural program at the Ross Ragland Theater in Klamath Falls. What I remembered was that they honored Hiroshi Kashiwagi, who had been a regular at the Tule Lake pilgrimages, where he would often be invited to read his writing. He was unofficially called the “Poet Laureate of Tule Lake.”

After that, they had an amazing taiko performance by attendees that had maybe a day or two to practice together.

The next day we headed back to San Francisco. At the bus stop in Japantown, I remember having a fond farewell with Hiroshi. I would email him a few more times that year, but he had moved to the East Bay towards the end of the year, and I think that last encounter at the bus stop was my last meeting with him. Hiroshi passed away the following year.

That trip was also my last overnight trip with Mas. I think we took a few more day trips together, but that was our last major trip. My guess is that I traveled over 20,000 miles with Mas and Florence over the course of 25 years. He and Florence would often talk about their internment experiences, especially on our trips. I was glad to have finally gone with Mas on one of these pilgrimages.

Why You Should Go On One of These Pilgrimages

Florence Hongo and the other AACP (JACP back then) founders had as their first objective for the organization to get the story out about the Internment. It was a part of American history that they were personally qualified to tell. The point of highlighting the injustices done in the United States is not to embarrass and place blame on people and the government. It’s to make sure it never happens again. To prevent future injustices, you need to learn from the past injustices and be completely clear eyed about it.

Since I’ve been with AACP, I was very fortunate to have had constant first hand contact with survivors of the Internment. Books can describe the history, but knowing someone that actually lived the experience is invaluable.

So many of the survivors of the Internment are passing away now, that few of the adults who lived that experience are still alive. If you were 18 years old at the start of the Internment in 1942, you would be turning 100-years-old this year. That means that most of the internees that are still alive today were probably either teenagers or children at the time. The Internment experiences of teenagers and children were different than that of their parents. Still, going to a pilgrimage will give you first hand contact with people that lived at these camps.

For those of you that don’t have a direct connection, such as a relative that was at one of these camps, it’s even more important that you make the effort to go to a pilgrimage now. You never had the chance to speak with a parent or grandparent about it. And it’s even more important to make an effort to learn about the harms done to groups other than your own. We all need to get out of our bubbles some times and interact with our neighbors and others.

So go on an Internment camp pilgrimage, honor and remember those that were unjustly incarcerated, and learn.

List of Pilgrimages

Tule Lake Pilgrimage 

Manzanar Pilgrimage

Poston Pilgrimage (date not announced yet, but continue to check their website)

Topaz Pilgrimage

Heart Mountain

Minidoka Pilgrimage (date not announced on their website yet)

Amache Pilgrimage 

Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages (a nonprofit organization that list general information about all the pilgrimages)

Books and Resources on Tule Lake

Swimming In the American by Hiroshi Kashiwagi

Starting from Loomis and Other Stories by Hiroshi Kashiwagi 

Tule Lake Revisited by Barbara Takei and Judy Tachibana

Years of Infamy by Michi Weglyn

Tule Lake Committee’s page on the history of Tule Lake

National Park Service’s website on Tule Lake

Wikipedia’s article on Tule Lake

Densho Encyclopedia's article on Tule Lake