FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 4, 2010
Contact: Barbara Takei
(916) 392-5432
btakei -at- pobox.com
To download a printable flyer about
the 2010 Tule Lake Pilgrimage,
click on the image above.
The
Tule Lake Committee announced that registration forms for the
2010 Tule Lake Pilgrimage are available at
http://www.tulelake.org. The pilgrimage will take place over the 4th of July weekend, beginning Friday, July 2 through Monday, July 5, 2009.
The 18th pilgrimage will continue the focus on the young adults who were segregated at Tule Lake, especially the “no-nos” and those who renounced their U.S. citizenship while incarcerated at Tule Lake.
Over the past several Tule Lake pilgrimages, the Tule Lake Committee has welcomed the stories of Tule Lake’s dissidents, hoping to learn more about the life experiences that were marginalized and eliminated from the post-war Japanese American narrative.
Tule Lake has been stigmatized as the concentration camp for “troublemakers” and “bad” and “disloyal” people, a carryover of the government’s loyal/disloyal paradigm forced on Japanese Americans. This stigma contributed to the stories of protest at Tule Lake being buried, and helped promote a “model minority” stereotype of Japanese Americans that has been used to undermine other minority groups’ demands for equitable and just treatment.
“Stories about legitimate and courageous acts of grass roots civil disobedience were shunned in favor of stories that enhanced an image of Japanese American loyalty and cooperation,” said Hiroshi Shimizu, who chairs the pilgrimage committee. “Unfortunately, too many Japanese Americans have accepted and internalized the propaganda that labeled Japanese Americans as disloyal if they refused to give unqualified “yes” answers to the loyalty questions.”
“Tragically, the Nisei who refused to cooperate with the government’s incarceration program were stigmatized as disloyal, and silenced—by their own people.” Read the rest of this entry »
