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82-641: A total of 85 Heart Mountain resisters and the Committee leaders were convicted for Selective Service Act violations and sentenced to three to five years in federal prison. In 1947, they were pardoned by President Harry S. Truman , but for decades the Fair Play Committee members were largely seen within the Japanese American community as traitors and cowards (especially when pitted against the famed 100th Infantry Battalion, also known as

164-552: A "Fair Play Committee of One" in November 1943. Emi and several others approached Okamoto later that year and began holding informal meetings to discuss their complaints against the WRA and possible courses of action. The meetings remained fairly small until early 1944, when Nisei men, demoted to 4-C class after Pearl Harbor, were added to the draft pool and began receiving induction notices in camp. The Fair Play Committee formally elected

246-454: A "relocation camp", "relocation center", " internment camp ", " concentration camp ", and "segregation center", and the controversy over which term is the most accurate and appropriate continues into the early 21st century. Activists and scholars believe the government terms: relocation and internment, are euphemisms for forced deportation and concentration camps. In 1998, use of the term "concentration camps" gained greater credibility prior to

328-540: A "renunciation" of allegiance to Japan would be considered an admission of previous guilt and used to justify deportation or other punishment. Inmates organized the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee based on initial resistance to the loyalty questionnaire. Frank Emi had refused to answer the questions, instead writing that "under the present circumstances" he was unable to complete the form. He posted fliers around camp advising others to do

410-458: A Class 4-C Enemy Alien; and then drafted him into military service. Kuwabara refused to obey the draft until his rights as an American citizen were restored to him. Japanese-American activists revisited the civil rights issues of the forced relocation and incarceration of their people from the West Coast. In Hawaii, where 150,000 Japanese Americans comprised one-third of the population, only

492-487: A Motion to Quash Proceedings based on the government's abrogation of his client's due process rights, guaranteed to every American citizen by the U.S. Constitution. Without explicitly describing Kuwabara as a victim of federal anti-Japanese racism, Judge Goodman viewed the man's experience in this light. He ruled against the United States, which incarcerated the defendant in a U.S. concentration camp; categorized him as

574-572: A WRA- and JACL-sponsored visit to Heart Mountain to help with recruiting, said of the resisters: "These men are Fascists in my estimation and no good to my country. They have torn down all the rest of us have tried to do." At the same time, however, James Omura of the Denver-based Rocky Shimpo published editorials of his own that argued in support of the FPC demand that Nisei rights be restored prior to their conscription, countering

656-493: A class action suit because of civil rights abuses; many gained the chance to stay in the United States through court hearings, but did not regain their citizenship due to opposition by the Department of Justice. The camp was not closed until March 20, 1946, months after the end of the war. Twenty years later, members of the class action suit gained restoration of US citizenship through court rulings. California later designated

738-492: A different kind of courage and patriotism during the war (although this view was by no means universal). Around this time the JACL began to approach reconciliation with the resisters. In 1994, Frank Emi and Mits Koshiyama (another Fair Play member) were invited to speak at the organization's national convention, although their attendance sparked no action other than the firing of the JACL staff who had invited them. Five years later,

820-480: A full pardon. The West Coast was reopened to Japanese American settlement on January 2, 1945. Over the next several months, the WRA concentration camps slowly emptied as inmates either returned to their prewar hometowns or resettled in Midwest or East Coast hubs such as Chicago and New York. Early returnees faced severe housing and job shortages, which were exacerbated by lingering racial prejudice; upon their release,

902-467: A leave clearance registration form among adults in all ten camps, hoping to encourage some Japanese Americans to resettle outside the West Coast and relieve overcrowding in camp. The registration was initially given only to Nisei who had volunteered for resettlement. However, as the need increased to draft replacement troops for U.S. forces in Europe and North Africa, WRA officials saw an opportunity to assess

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984-533: A national lottery. If drafted, a man served on active duty for 12 months, and then in a reserve component for 10 years, until he reached the age of 45, or was discharged, whichever came first. Inductees had to remain in the Western Hemisphere or in United States possessions or territories located in other parts of the world. The act provided that except in time of war, not more than 900,000 men were to be in training at any one time. Section 5 (g) of

1066-432: A position the organization would maintain for over half a century. Despite tensions within the larger community, former FPC members resettled and went on with their lives, although most did not speak about their wartime resistance. Public opinion remained mostly against the Committee until the 1970s and 1980s, when Sansei activists involved in the movement to obtain redress for the wartime incarceration began to reexamine

1148-450: A resolution to apologize to draft resisters was introduced at a regional meeting of the JACL's Central California branch, but it was quickly killed by opposing members. A successful resolution was finally brought before the national board in 1999 and narrowly passed a vote at the JACL's 2000 convention. In May 2002, the JACL held a public ceremony to apologize to the Fair Play Committee and other wartime resisters. The last surviving member of

1230-471: A response to the attack on Pearl Harbor , authorized establishing an Exclusion Zone on the West Coast, from which local military authorities could remove certain populations under wartime exigency. Military commanders ordered the forced removal and incarceration of the nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast of the United States, two-thirds of whom were United States citizens. A late 20th-century study revealed that internal government studies of

1312-476: A second influx of segregated inmates, pushing the already swollen population to 18,700. The camp quickly became violent and unsafe. Martial law in Tule Lake ended on January 15, 1944, but many prisoners were bitter after months of living with a curfew, unannounced barrack searches, and restrictions that put a stop to recreational activities and most employment in the camp. In the spring of 1944, Ernest Besig of

1394-490: A small number were interned during the war. Japanese-American groups began to organize to educate the public, build support for their case, and lobby the government for redress. Finally the Japanese American Citizens League joined this movement, although it had initially opposed it. Starting in 1974, Tule Lake was the site of several pilgrimages by activists calling for an official apology from

1476-522: Is a newsletter that was established in June 1942 and ended in October 1943, when Tule Lake became a segregation center. It was the shortest-running newspaper of the ten concentration camps. In late 1943, the WRA issued a questionnaire intended to assess the loyalty of imprisoned Japanese Americans. The " loyalty questionnaire ", as it came to be known, was originally a form circulated among draft-age men whom

1558-466: Is sustained by the local draft board shall, if he is inducted into the land or naval forces under this Act, be assigned to noncombatant service as defined by the President, or shall if he is found to be conscientiously opposed to participation in such noncombatant service, in lieu of such induction, be assigned to work of national importance under civilian direction. The draft began in October 1940, with

1640-568: The Pacific Citizen , likewise editorialized against the resisters. After close to a month of inaction from the government, U.S. Marshals entered the camp on March 25, 1944 and arrested the first twelve draft resisters. While the arrested resisters awaited hearings in local jails, Frank Emi and two other Fair Play leaders tried to walk out of Heart Mountain (knowing they would be stopped) to protest their status as prisoners. Camp administrators transferred Kiyoshi Okamoto to Tule Lake. Still,

1722-624: The Tule Lake Segregation Center , was an American concentration camp located in Modoc and Siskiyou counties in California and constructed in 1942 by the United States government to incarcerate Japanese Americans, forcibly removing from their homes on the West Coast. They totaled nearly 120,000 people, more than two-thirds of whom were United States citizens. Among the inmates, the notation " Tsurureiko ( 鶴嶺湖 ) "

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1804-514: The " Purple Heart Battalion" and the 442nd RCT whose motto was a Hawaiian pidgin English phrase "Go for Broke"). In the post-war years, Japanese Americans struggled to re-establish their place in American society, but in the 1970s a movement began to gain redress for their forced imprisonment in the concentration camps; as former inmates spoke out about their wartime experiences, attitudes towards

1886-499: The "Japanese problem." On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 , authorizing military commanders to designate areas from which "any or all persons may be excluded." Over the next few months some 112,000 to 120,000 West Coast Japanese were forcibly removed to inland concentration camps. Two-thirds of them were American citizens born in the United States. Heart Mountain , located halfway between

1968-530: The Act contained a provision for conscientious objection : Nothing contained in this Act shall be constructed to require any person to be subject to combatant training and service in the land and naval forces of the United States who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form. Any such person claiming such exemption from combatant training and service because of such conscientious objections whose claim

2050-553: The Army when my family is freed", or refused to answer the questions altogether. Many interns had problems with the second question. Many were insulted that the question implied they ever had allegiance to a country they had either left behind decades before or, for most US citizens, never visited. Others, especially the non-citizen Issei , feared they would be deported to Japan no matter how they answered, and worried that an affirmative answer would cause them to be seen as enemy aliens by

2132-555: The Emperor of Japan (Question 28). Many young men were insulted to be asked to enlist on behalf of a country that had imprisoned them and forced the loss of their family businesses and homes. They also resented the second question, which seemed to assume that Japanese Americans had, at some point, been loyal to Japan rather than the United States. Others were simply confused, fearing that an affirmative answer to Question 27 would be equated with volunteering for dangerous combat duty, and that

2214-607: The Fair Play Committee and James Omura, who had been forced to resign from the Rocky Shimpo in April, were indicted by a Wyoming federal grand jury. In July they were arrested for unlawful conspiracy to counsel, aid and abet violations of the Selective Service Act . (Omura and the FPC leaders were older than the eighty-five others and had not technically violated any induction orders because they were not subject to

2296-667: The Fair Play Committee, and a March 1 rally attracted over 400 attendees. Public meetings continued. The Committee became a formal membership organization, with a $ 2 fee for joining and a requirement that all members be citizens loyal to the United States and willing to serve if their rights were restored. The Fair Play Committee began to meet regularly in February 1944, holding evening meetings in Heart Mountain mess halls which were well attended by young men questioning whether to report for their pre-induction physicals as mandated by

2378-583: The Fair Play members encountered not only a difficult job market and discriminatory real estate practices, but widespread hostility from other Japanese Americans. The heroic exploits of the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd, such as the rescue of the Lost Battalion and the liberation of a Dachau sub-camp, had been widely publicized during the war; the Nisei soldiers were credited with helping to end

2460-604: The Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, Frank Emi, died December 1, 2010. Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 , also known as the Burke–Wadsworth Act , Pub. L.   76–783 , 54  Stat.   885 , enacted September 16, 1940 , was the first peacetime conscription in United States history. This Selective Service Act required that men who had reached their 21st birthday but had not yet reached their 36th birthday register with local draft boards. Later, when

2542-542: The Japanese. Issei, and many Nisei and Kibei who held dual citizenship, worried they would lose their Japanese citizenship, leaving them stateless if they were expatriated from the United States, which they feared was inevitable, given what had already occurred. In addition to these concerns, some inmates answered "no" to both questions in protest of their imprisonment and loss of civil rights. Often Issei and Kibei, who spoke little or no English, simply did not understand

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2624-454: The Nazi concentration camps. In recent years, concentration camps have existed in the former Soviet Union, Cambodia and Bosnia. Despite differences, all had one thing in common: the people in power removed a minority group from the general population and the rest of society let it happen. The New York Times published an unsigned editorial supporting the use of the term "concentration camp" in

2706-624: The Northern California branch of the ACLU became aware of a hastily constructed stockade at Tule Lake, in which internees were routinely being brutalized and held for months without due process. Besig was forbidden by the national ACLU to intervene on behalf of the stockade prisoners or even to visit the Tule Lake camp without prior written approval from the ACLU's Roger Baldwin . Unable to help directly, Besig turned to civil rights attorney Wayne M. Collins for assistance. Collins, using

2788-667: The Tule Lake Segregation Center near Newell , nearby Camp Tulelake , and a rock formation known as the Peninsula/Castle Rock near Newell. The Tule Lake Segregation Center is solely managed by the NPS. Camp Tulelake is jointly managed by the NPS and USFWS; the USFWS manages/owns the land, and the NPS maintains the buildings and provides interpretive programs. The Peninsula/Castle Rock is solely managed by

2870-558: The Tule Lake camp site as a California Historical Landmark and in 2006, it was named a National Historic Landmark . In December 2008, the Tule Lake Unit was designated by President George W. Bush as one of nine sites—the only one in the contiguous 48 states—to be part of the new World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument , marking areas of major events during the war. In addition to remains of

2952-452: The U.S. entered World War II , all men from their 18th birthday until the day before their 45th birthday were made subject to military service, and all men from their 18th birthday until the day before their 65th birthday were required to register. The first peacetime conscription in the United States , the act required all American men between the ages of 21 and 35 to register and be placed in order for call to military service determined by

3034-492: The U.S. government for the injustices to Japanese Americans, both citizens and non-citizens. The pilgrimages (every even year, around the 4th of July), serving educational purposes, continue to this day. This Redress Movement gradually gained widespread support and Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 , which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan . It included an official governmental apology for

3116-578: The USFWS. Locally, USFWS responsibilities are handled by the administration of Lava Beds National Monument and the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge . Since the end of World War II, there has been debate over the terminology used to refer to Tule Lake, and the other camps in which Japanese Americans were imprisoned by the United States Government during the war. Tule Lake has been referred to as

3198-542: 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?" The first question met resistance from young men who, while not opposed to military service outright, felt insulted that the government, having stripped them of their rights as citizens, would ask them to risk their lives in combat. Many responded with qualified statements such as, "I'll serve in

3280-401: The United States into World War II, Japanese Americans quickly became conflated with the enemy, in large part due to existing prejudices and competing business interests. Especially on the West Coast, where the mainland Japanese American population and the nativist groups who lobbied for their incarceration were concentrated, political leaders and well-connected citizens pushed for a solution to

3362-598: The United States military's ranks both by volunteering and by conscription. Congress declared war in December, and amendments to the Selective Training and Service Act on December 20, 1941, made all men between the ages of 20 and 44 liable for military service, and required all men between the ages of 18 and 64 to register. The terminal point of service was extended to the duration of the conflict plus six months. Another amendment, signed on November 13, 1942, made

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3444-531: The Wyoming towns of Cody and Powell , was one of ten camps run by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), the government agency responsible for administration of the incarceration program. At many camps, it required Japanese Americans to work at building their own prison barracks. By the start of 1943, Heart Mountain had reached its peak population of 10,767. The WRA soon after began distributing

3526-437: The appeal of the draft resisters. Adding to the anti-resister rhetoric of the ACLU's publicized legal position, a Pacific Citizen editorial published on April 8, 1944 referred to the resisters as "draft dodgers" who had "injured the cause of loyal Japanese Americans everywhere." (By this time the number of Heart Mountain inmates refusing induction had topped forty.) Ben Kuroki , a Japanese American war hero who had earlier paid

3608-554: The appropriation of $ 38,000,000 in federal grant money to preserve and interpret the system of Japanese-American incarceration sites, including the temporary WCCA sites, the ten WRA concentration camps and the Department of Justice internment camps. The Monument is jointly managed by the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) with a total area of 1,391 acres (5.63 km ). The national monument consists of three separate units:

3690-624: The camp and, as the story spread, outside of it were critical of the organization's stance and the individual decisions to disobey draft orders. The inmate-run newspaper, the Heart Mountain Sentinel , published editorials and public letters railing against the Fair Play Committee. As attendance at the FPC meetings and the number of protesters grew, Sentinel articles described Fair Play members as "warp-minded" and "deluded youths" who "lacked both physical and moral courage." The Japanese American Citizens League's (JACL) national paper,

3772-399: The circumstances of their resistance. (This movement culminated in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 , which granted a formal apology and reparations to camp survivors.) Interest in the Fair Play resisters from community members and Asian American Studies scholars increased in the following decades. By the 1990s, many Nisei veterans associations had come to see the other group as having exercised

3854-438: The concentration camp, the national monument unit includes Camp Tulelake , also used during the war; as well as the rock formation known as the Peninsula/Castle Rock. The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act , signed March 12, 2019, split up the three units of the monument, creating a new Tule Lake National Monument. Executive Order 9066 , issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in early 1942 as

3936-539: The country—and once they did, the government could treat them as enemy aliens , and detain or deport them with impunity. Angry at the abuses of their U.S. citizenship and convinced there was nothing left for them in the country of their birth, or coerced either by WRA authorities and pro-Japan groups in camp, a total of 5,589 Nisei and Kibei internees chose to renounce their citizenship. Ninety-eight percent of those who renounced their citizenship were inmates at Tule Lake, where conditions had been so harsh. In 1945 after

4018-462: The draft; the conspiracy charge allowed the government to prosecute them anyway.) Their case was heard before a Cheyenne jury in October 1944; Omura was acquitted, while the seven Fair Play leaders were found guilty and sentenced to two to four years in federal prison. In 1945, the Denver Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of the seven Fair Play Committee leaders, after discovering that

4100-413: The exhibit. An article quoted Jonathan Mark, a columnist for The Jewish Week , who wrote, "Can no one else speak of slavery, gas, trains, camps? It's Jewish malpractice to monopolize pain and minimize victims." AJC Executive Director David A. Harris stated during the controversy, "We have not claimed Jewish exclusivity for the term 'concentration camps.'" On July 7, 2012, at their annual convention,

4182-537: The first men entering military service on November 18. By the early summer of 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the U.S. Congress to extend the term of duty for the draftees beyond twelve months to a total of thirty months, plus any additional time that he might deem necessary for national security. On August 12, the United States House of Representatives approved the extension by a single vote; Roosevelt's former Secretary of War Harry Woodring

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4264-489: The government. These early meetings addressed the unconstitutionality of the eviction from the West Coast, the discrimination in allowing Nisei to serve only in a segregated battalion, and the lack of information on if and when they would be released from camp. Okamoto, Emi and the other FPC leaders at first avoided directly advising against compliance with the draft, fearing reprisal from military or WRA officials (then busy removing Japanese American protestors deemed "disloyal" to

4346-450: The incarceration by spreading a positive image of patriotic Japanese Americans. The draft resisters, on the other hand, were considered by many to have worked against this goal and created additional hardships for Japanese Americans who wanted to be perceived as loyal. Additionally, the JACL had in February 1946 voted to formally and publicly condemn the Fair Play Committee and all those who had in some way protested their wartime incarceration,

4428-555: The injustices and payment of compensation to camp survivors. A similar law was passed in 1992 to provide for compensation to additional Japanese Americans. Groups making the annual pilgrimage have organized them around specific themes, and used them as a basis for education, as in the following: On December 21, 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush signed H.R. 1492 into law, creating the Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. This authorized

4510-479: The injustices of the camps, including by their answers on the loyalty questionnaire, were sent here. At its peak, Tule Lake Segregation Center (with 18,700 inmates) was the largest of the ten camps and the most controversial. 29,840 people were held there over the four years it was open. After the war, it became a holding area for Japanese Americans slated for deportation or expatriation to Japan, including some who had renounced US citizenship under duress. Many joined

4592-635: The jurors in their original trial had been instructed not to consider civil disobedience as a valid defense. The eighty-five younger Fair Play members remained in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Min Tamesa's appeal on their behalf, although many received an early release for good behavior in July 1946. The rest of the Heart Mountain resisters, as well as more than 200 from other camps who had been prosecuted and imprisoned, were not released until December 1947, when President Harry Truman granted them

4674-457: The last cases were decided, the camp closed in March 1946. Although these Japanese Americans were released from camp and allowed to stay in the U.S., Nisei and Kibei who had renounced their citizenship were not able to have it restored. Wayne M. Collins filed a class action suit on their behalf and the presiding judge voided the renunciations, finding they had been given under duress, but the ruling

4756-399: The loyalty of incarcerated Japanese Americans and expanded the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" to vet potential enlistees and troublemakers. The loyalty questionnaire was unpopular among prisoners in Heart Mountain and every other WRA camp, mostly because of its final two questions: Would the respondent volunteer for military service (Question 27); and would the person forswear allegiance to

4838-458: The loyalty questionnaire were given the choice to transfer from Tule Lake to another WRA camp. Approximately 6,500 "loyal" Tule Lake inmates were transferred to six camps in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Arkansas. The more than 12,000 imprisoned Japanese Americans classified as "disloyal" because of their responses to the poorly worded loyalty questions were gradually transferred to Tule Lake during

4920-418: The maximum security Tule Lake Segregation Center ). On March 4, 1944 the Committee changed tactics and publicized their intention to "refuse to go to the physical examination or to the induction if or when we are called in order to contest the issue." On March 6, the first two resisters refused to report for their physicals, and by the end of the week they were joined by ten others. Many Japanese Americans in

5002-413: The military hoped to conscript into service—after assessing their loyalty and "Americanness". It soon was made mandatory for all adults in the ten camps. Two questions stirred up confusion and unrest among camp inmates. Question 27 asked, "Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?" The final question 28 asked, "Will you swear unqualified allegiance to

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5084-523: The number of young men disobeying draft orders swelled throughout April, reaching sixty-three by June. During this period, Okamoto wrote to Roger N. Baldwin , National Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), seeking "legal assistance in challenging the constitutionality of drafting internees." Baldwin responded in a letter which was reprinted by the JACL in its Bulletin #9 of April 11, 1944 and which he released to

5166-687: The opening of an exhibit at Ellis Island about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Initially, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the National Park Service , which manages Ellis Island, objected to the use of the term in the exhibit. But, during a subsequent meeting held at the offices of the AJC in New York City, leaders representing Japanese Americans and Jewish Americans reached an understanding about

5248-500: The poorly phrased questions or their implications, and did not answer. In 1943 the center was renamed the Tule Lake Segregation Center. The War Relocation Authority proposed to use it to separate inmates suspected of being disloyal or those who protested conditions and were disruptive in their camps. It was fortified as a maximum security facility and it quickly became the most repressive of the government's 10 concentration camps. Interns who had responded with unqualified "yes" answers to

5330-411: The press that same day. He said, "The men who have refused to accept military draft are within their rights, but they of course must take the consequences. They doubtless have a strong moral case, but no legal case at all." He refused to have the ACLU represent them. According to documentation revealed by historian Roger Daniels, the JACL and ACLU collaborated in this response and in its publicity to impede

5412-480: The pro-administration publications. In the largest federal trial in Wyoming history, the sixty-three arrested resisters were convicted of felony draft evasion and, at the JACL's suggestion, sedition . Judge Thomas Blake Kennedy (who referred to the defendants as "you Jap boys") sentenced them to three years in federal prison. On July 1, 1944, the Heart Mountain Sentinel included an editorial on

5494-594: The registered 18- and 19-year-olds liable for military service. From October 1940 until March 1947, when the wartime Selective Training and Service Act expired after extensions by Congress, over 10,000,000 men were inducted. In 1947, President Harry S. Truman gave a full pardon to 1,523 people convicted of violating the Act. Tule Lake Unit, World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument The Tule Lake War Relocation Center , also known as

5576-460: The remainder of 1943. Unsanitary, squalid living conditions, inadequate medical care, poor food, and unsafe or underpaid working conditions prompted prisoner protests at Tule Lake and several other camps. On November 14, after a series of meetings and demonstrations by prisoners over the poor living conditions at the overpopulated camp, the army imposed martial law in Tule Lake. The Army had additional barracks constructed early in 1944 to accommodate

5658-608: The resisters began to change. Since the late 20th century, the draft resisters have been recognized as objectors of conscience with an equally important place in the incarceration history, although their legacy remains a point of contention for many. In 2002, the Japanese American Citizens League , which during the war was a vocal opponent of the Committee and worked with the FBI to prosecute its members, formally apologized for its role in their imprisonment and subsequent ostracization. After Japan's December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor pulled

5740-426: The same. Kiyoshi Okamoto had already established himself as a prominent figure in Heart Mountain, having helped organize a "Congress of American Citizens" to protest the lack of information provided by the WRA and the military in their administration of the "registration" process. Okamoto continued to publicly protest the loyalty questionnaire and the general infringement of Nisei citizens' rights in camp, dubbing himself

5822-435: The seven founders (Okamoto, Emi, Sam Horino, Guntaro Kubota, Paul Nakadate, Min Tamesa, and Ben Wakaye) as its steering committee on January 26. Its first public meeting was held in a mess hall on February 8, 1944 and sixty young men showed up to listen to Committee leaders' arguments against the forced conscription of citizens who had been stripped of their rights. As the number of Heart Mountain draftees grew, so did interest in

5904-582: The soldiers drafted in October 1940 talked about desertion once their original twelve-month obligation ended. Some painted the letters "O H I O" on the walls of their barracks in protest. These letters were an acronym for "Over the hill in October". In August 1941 the Congress extended the tour of duty--it passed the House by a one-vote margin--and O H I O collapsed. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , on December 7, 1941, millions of American men entered

5986-622: The term 'concentration camp' was first used at the turn of the century in the Spanish–American and Boer Wars . During World War II, America's concentration camps were clearly distinguishable from Nazi Germany's. Nazi camps were places of torture, barbarous medical experiments and summary executions ; some were extermination centers with gas chambers. Six million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust . Many others, including Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals and political dissidents were also victims of

6068-475: The threat of habeas corpus suits, managed to have the stockade closed down. A year later, after learning that the stockade had been reestablished, he returned to the camp and had it closed down for good. On July 1, the Renunciation Act of 1944 , drafted by Attorney General Francis Biddle , was passed into law; U.S. citizens could, during time of war, renounce their citizenship without first leaving

6150-608: The time recommended against such mass exclusion and incarceration, and the study concluded this decision was based on racism, wartime hysteria and failed political leadership. The War Relocation Authority (WRA) built ten concentration camps, referred to euphemistically as "relocation centers", in remote rural areas in the interior of the country. Tule Lake Relocation Center opened on May 27, 1942, and initially held approximately 11,800 Japanese Americans, who were primarily from Sacramento, King and Hood River counties in California, Washington and Oregon, respectively. The Tulean Dispatch

6232-405: The trial entitled "Years of Uselessness," in which it described "the action of the 63 defendants as being as serious an attack on the integrity of all nisei as the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor." Twenty-two young men were prosecuted in a subsequent trial and received the same sentence, bringing the total number of draft resisters in Heart Mountain to eighty-five. On May 10, 1944, the seven leaders of

6314-489: The use of the term. After the meeting, the Japanese American National Museum and the AJC issued a joint statement (which was included in the exhibit) that read in part: A concentration camp is a place where people are imprisoned not because of any crimes they have committed, but simply because of who they are. Although many groups have been singled out for such persecution throughout history,

6396-568: The war's end, the other nine WRA camps were closed as Japanese Americans gradually returned to their hometowns or settled elsewhere. Tule Lake was operated to hold those who had renounced their citizenship and Issei who had requested repatriation to Japan. Most no longer wished to leave the United States (and many had never truly wanted to leave in the first place). Those who wanted to stay in the United States and regain their citizenship (if they had it), were confined in Tule Lake until hearings at which their cases would be heard and fates determined. After

6478-605: Was among those opposed, writing to Senator Arthur Vandenberg that voluntary enlistment had not been fully tried. As Under Secretary of the Army Karl R. Bendetsen said in an oral history interview, " Mr. Rayburn banged the gavel at a critical moment and declared the Bill had passed." The Senate approved it by a wider margin, and Roosevelt signed the Service Extension Act of 1941 into law on August 18. Some of

6560-652: Was overturned by the Department of Justice . After a 23-year legal battle, Collins finally succeeded in gaining restoration in the late 1960s of the citizenship of those covered by the class action suit. Collins also helped 3,000 of the 4,327 Japanese Americans originally slated for deportation remain in the United States as their choice. Some of the Japanese-American draft resisters wanted to use their cases to challenge their incarceration and loss of rights as US citizens. United States v. Masaaki Kuwabara

6642-523: Was sometimes applied. After a period of use as the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, this facility was renamed the Tule Lake Segregation Center in 1943 and used as a maximum-security segregation camp to separate and hold those prisoners considered disloyal or disruptive to the operations of other camps. Inmates from other camps were sent here to segregate them from the general population. Draft resisters and others who protested

6724-582: Was the only World War II-era Japanese-American draft resistance case to be dismissed out of court based on a due process violation of the U.S. Constitution. It was a forerunner of the Korematsu and Endo cases argued before the US Supreme Court, later in December 1944. Judge Louis E. Goodman went out of his way to help fellow native Californian and lead defendant Masaaki Kuwabara by hand-picking his defense attorney, Blaine McGowan, who entered

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