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1 Those Who Resisted 1. While in the internment camps, men were required to take a survey to measure their loyalty. Those who answered no to # 27 and #28 on the survey were called No No Boys. They were branded as disloyal and were often moved to the Tule Lake internment camp. Click on the link below. To hear two short interviews, click on the top right hand side of the page. You ll hear a very short fund-raising pitch followed by the interviews, or you can read the transcript of the interviews on the page. The link to the Roosevelt video is probably inactive Tule Lake Tule Lake was the largest and most controversial of the ten War Relocation Authority WRA camps used to carry out the government s system of exclusion and detention of persons of Japanese descent, mandated by Executive Order The Order, which eliminated the constitutional protections of due process and violated the Bill of Rights, was issued February 19, 1942 following Japan s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, Two-thirds of the 120,000 persons of Japanese descent incarcerated in American concentration camps were American citizens, an act that culminated decades of anti-japanese violence, discrimination and propaganda. Tule Lake opened May 26, 1942, detaining persons of Japanese descent removed from western Washington, Oregon and Northern California. With a peak population of 18,700, Tule Lake was the largest of the camps - the only one turned into a high-security segregation center, ruled under martial law and occupied by the Army. Due to turmoil and strife, Tule Lake was the last to close, on March 28, Tule Lake Becomes a High-Security Segregation Center Tule Lake became a Segregation Center to detain Japanese-Americans who were deemed potential enemies of America because of their response to an infamous, confusing loyalty questionnaire intended to distinguish loyal American citizens from enemy alien supporters of Japan. Question 27 asked, Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered? Question 28 asked, Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?

2 No-Nos gave negative responses to Questions 27 and 28 or refused to answer them. Some answered No to protest their incarceration; others were confused about what the questions meant. Refusal to answer or No answers were viewed as proof of disloyalty, and resulted in removal to Tule Lake, which became the Segregation Center because it had the highest proportion of persons who answered No to 27 and 28. The Japanese American Citizens League harshly condemned No-Nos as troublemakers, believing the situation demanded a strong show of loyalty to America. Martial Law Declared at Tule Lake Squalid housing and sanitation, unsafe working conditions, and inadequate food and medical care at the Tule Lake Segregation Center led to increasing dissatisfaction. The Center was soon wracked by work stoppages, labor disputes and demonstrations. On November 1, 1943, a crowd estimated at 5,000 to 10,000 inmates gathered near the administration area to show interest and support for camp leaders meeting with WRA administrators. The mass gathering of Japanese Americans alarmed the Caucasian staff and led to construction of a barbed wire fence to separate the colony from the WRA administrative staff. The Army was poised to take over the camp in case of trouble. On November 4, 1943, disputes over truckloads of food taken from the warehouse led to the Army takeover of the camp using machine guns and tanks. Martial law was imposed and was continued until January 15, Motives for Renouncing Complex Perhaps the most tragic and divisive issue was created when Public Law 405 was passed by Congress and signed by President Roosevelt on July 1, This law, directed at Japanese Americans in Tule Lake, permitted an American citizen to renounce (give up) their citizenship in wartime. Passage of the renunciation law began one of the saddest and least known chapters of Japanese American history. Of the 5,589 Japanese Americans who renounced their U.S. citizenship, 5,461 were detained at Tule Lake, where 70% of all adult American citizens there renounced. At Tule Lake, 73% of families had at least one member who gave up their citizenship. Of that group, 1,327 of them, including young children, were expatriated (sent back ) to Japan. Most renunciants remained in the U.S. stripped of their citizenship, as powerless Native American Aliens. The stampede to renounce took place in late December 1944, after it was announced detention was ending and the camps would be closing. The prison-like Segregation Center was swept up in panic, anger and confusion. Motives for renouncing varied widely. Many inmates feared they would be forced into hostile American communities with no money, no promise of income and no place to live. Army personnel told them they could remain safe in Tule Lake until the war ended if they renounced their U.S. citizenship.

3 Second generation Nisei and Kibei, both children and adults, described intense pressure from their non-citizen Issei parents to renounce U.S. citizenship as a strategy to keep the family together in case the Issei were deported to Japan after the war. Rumors, speculation, and the lack of trusted sources of information gave inmates little basis for making an informed decision about the future. Some believed propaganda heard over contraband short-wave radios; they dismissed news of Allied victories as lies and thought that they needed to renounce U.S. citizenship to prepare for life in a victorious Japan. Some remembered pro-japan extremists who behaved like agent provocateurs, pressuring others to renounce but not doing so themselves. Teenagers and young adults who were classified by the Army as 4-C, enemy aliens, renounced to avoid being drafted by the country that imprisoned them and their families. For people with no legal forums available to them, renouncing was a way to protest America s shabby treatment of them and their families. The Tragic Aftermath When the war ended, the tragedy of the renunciants became apparent when the Justice Department prepared for mass deportation of the thousands who renounced. The renunciants had little understanding of what they gave up, or that they would become enemy aliens who could be legally expelled. Nearly all of the renunciants eventually sought restoration of their citizenship, including those who expatriated to Japan. Most regained their citizenship primarily due to the heroic but little-known efforts of Wayne Mortimer Collins, a civil rights attorney who convinced the federal courts that the renunciants citizenship should be restored because the renunciations took place under extreme duress and amidst impossibly difficult circumstances. Collins wound up fighting the Department of Justice over 20 years to help former renunciants reclaim their citizenship. Congress and President Nixon repealed the renunciation law in Although absolved by the government, Japanese Americans who answered the loyalty questionnaire No and those who renounced their U.S. citizenship were stigmatized and ostracized for their choices. The renunciants, along with draft resisters, were condemned at the 1946 National JACL convention, which led to decades of them being marginalized for wartime choices. Consequently, they speak little about their life in the Segregation Center, a topic filled with powerful feelings of stigma and shame. Rebuilding At the end of World War II, Japanese Americans faced rebuilding their lives. The Issei (first generation) had to start again after losing almost everything. Nisei (second generation) were raising families and starting careers in a still hostile post-war environment. In the 1960's, Sansei (third generation) joined other people of color in the Civil Rights movement and the quest to learn our suppressed histories through ethnic studies. In this way, many Sansei learned their families had spent WWII in a U.S. concentration camp. As awareness of the wrongfulness of the incarceration grew, a movement developed to gain an apology and redress from the U.S. government. Students, community activists, and former

4 inmates organized the first Tule Lake Pilgrimage in 1974 to build support for redress through educating the larger community. The July 2010 pilgrimage will mark the 18th pilgrimage organized by the volunteer efforts of the Tule Lake Committee. The Redress Movement succeeded in getting the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (CLA) passed. The Act offered an official apology, funded education about the incarceration as a deterrent to future violations, and authorized a ten-year program of token $20,000 payments to most concentration camp survivors. Not all those wronged received redress. After 20 years, both the compensation and the education mandate of the CLA remain unfulfilled. Thus, this longstanding campaign for justice is entering a new phase. Additional legislation is being submitted this year to redress those individuals the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 failed to cover and to reinstitute the education fund. Lawsuits against U.S. government regarding these issues are also still pending. Education, action, and your support are still needed. 2. Gordon Hirabayshi In a remarkable show of personal courage, Auburn native Gordon Hirabayashi was one of handful of Japanese Americans nationwide to defy (disobey) U.S. government curfew and "evacuation" orders issued in 1942 to persons of Japanese ancestry who lived on the West Coast. He was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned, and eventually appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Although the Supreme Court upheld (agreed with ) his conviction (being found guilty) at the time, the fight to overturn it resumed in the 1980s, culminating in his judicial vindication (he was found innocent after at last). Source:

5 3. Gordon Hirabayashi ( ), 1940 Courtesy 1940 Tyee and UW Special Collections

6 Source: 4. Seattle native who resisted internment dies in Canada A sociologist who refused to be sent to internment camps that kept more than 100,000 Japanese Americans captive during World War II has died in the Canadian

7 city of Edmonton. Gordon Hirabayashi, who died at the age of 93, was vindicated four decades later when a U.S. court overturned his conviction and concluded that the U.S. government's internment policies had been based on political expediency, not on any risk to national security. By The Associated Press Gordon Hirabayashi, a Seattle native, is pictured at age 24 with his future wife, Esther Schmoe, 20, of Seattle. They married and later divorced. Both died Monday. EDMONTON, Alberta A sociologist who refused to be sent to internment camps that kept more than 100,000 Japanese Americans captive during World War II has died in the Canadian city of Edmonton.

8 Gordon Hirabayashi, who died at the age of 93, was vindicated four decades later when a U.S. court in 1987 overturned his conviction and concluded that the U.S. government's internment policies had been based on political expediency, not on any risk to national security. Mr. Hirabayashi had by then left the United States, working in Lebanon and Egypt before taking a job at the University of Alberta as chairman of the sociology department. Mr. Hirabayashi was born in Seattle and attended the University of Washington, where he was a student when he refused to get on a bus taking Japanese Americans to internment camps on the West Coast, saying he and his generation "were U.S. citizens. We had constitutional rights." His son, Jay Hirabayashi, said on Facebook that his father died Monday morning. He said his mother, Esther Hirabayashi, 87, died about 10 hours later. The couple were divorced. In 1942, five months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Mr. Hirabayashi turned himself in to the FBI and was sentenced to 90 days in prison, a verdict that was upheld on appeal through to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to a UW newsletter from 2000, Mr. Hirabayashi was in his senior year when he refused to get on a bus that was taking Japanese Americans to internment camps on the West Coast. "I wasn't a rebel looking for a cause," Mr. Hirabayashi said at the time. "In fact, I was preparing to go. But in the days before I was supposed to leave, I realized that I couldn't do it." He said he knew his parents might be in jeopardy, as they had not been eligible for naturalization when they immigrated to the United States. "But the second generation, my generation, were U.S. citizens," Mr. Hirabayashi said. "We had constitutional rights. I didn't think anything could happen to us. We had a rude awakening."

9 His disbelief continued as he fought his legal battle, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union. "When the case got to the federal courts I thought I might win it, since the primary goal of federal judges was to uphold the Constitution," he said. "But the judge told the jury, 'You heard the defense talking about defending the Constitution. That's irrelevant. The issue is the executive order that the military issued.' Under those circumstances, the jury came back very fast." Having his conviction overturned many years later was a real vindication not only for Mr. Hirabayashi but for "all the effort people had put in for the rights of citizens during crisis periods." He said it also changed his view of his home country. "There was a time when I felt that the Constitution failed me," he said. "But... the U.S. government admitted it made a mistake. A country that can do that is a strong country." Mr. Hirabayashi spent 23 years at the University of Alberta before retiring in His focus was the study of peasants in developing countries and the problems of confronting the mounting impact of post-world War II industrialization. Jay Hirabayashi called his father "an American hero." "Besides being a great father... (he) taught me about the values of honesty, integrity, and justice," he said. He noted that though his parents were divorced, "they somehow chose to leave us on the same day." 5. Click on this link to get to a page where you can hear a radio piece from National Public Radio about Gordon Hirabayashi it s about five minutes long. You can also click on the video clip on the bottom of the page you will have to listen to a thirty second commercial first, and then there s a two minute video. 6. Gordon Hirabayashi explains his choices click the link on the right side of the page to hear a brief audio clip. You may also choose to read more about Hirayabashi on this page.

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