"Violet De Cristoforo, Tule Lake" / 391

Did you know that there were internment camps on the West coast of America in WWII? This isn't something Americans are proud of, and is rarely highlighted in the history books (http://ionaprep.pvt.k12.ny.us/projects/intrnmnt/intrnmnt.htm). Interment camps are different than concentration camps. John Tateishi has interviewed Japenese-Americans from these camps, and includes the narrative of one mother from Tule Lake in northern California. All people of Japanese ancestry were to be moved to an interment camp. See the Japanese-American Internment Online Exhibit (http://www.scu.edu/SCU/Programs/Diversity/exhibit2.html). Read more about these concentration camps, Executive Order Number 9066, the Tule Lake Segregation Center, and the "loyalty quiz" that Violet de Cristoforo speaks of in Tateishi's summary at http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/haiku/haiku.htm.

Another site great for researching this subject is the Japanese American Resource Library, an oral history project (http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~asiadm01/japaamer.htm). Read these companion critical readings.