Klamath Falls, Oregon – Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, more than 110,000 Americans of Japanese descent were placed in ‘segregation centers’.
Actor and activist George Takei was sent to a camp in Tulelake with his parents at the age of 7. “We were innocent Americans that were rounded up simply because of our ancestry, because we looked like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor,” said Takei.
Many of those thought to pose the greatest risk were held at Tulelake. Takei maintains they were victims, “They were regular Japanese Americans before the war, but the government’s stupidity and racism and cruelty was what radicalized them.”
Oregon Tech served as home over the weekend to the 21st ‘Tulelake Pilgrimage’. The event drew 450 people.
Satsuki Ina is the producer of the award-winning documentary ‘From a Silk Cocoon’. Ina was born in the Tulelake camp.
Ina notes that many of the older survivors are now gone, “Now the second generation who, they were young adults or teenagers in the camp, are also passing – and those stories are now fewer, they’re much more frail.”
Many of those on the Pilgrimage visited the site of the camp south of Tulelake on Saturday.
“Walking around the barracks, seeing things from a different perspective,” Explained Ina. “And what it allows them to do is re-process the narrative – the story of their experience.”
George Takei’s father tried to explain that experience to his son. “He explained to me that our democracy is a people’s democracy, and the people can do great things – but the people are also fallible human beings, and the people made a horrible mistake,” added Takei.
Takei believes the experience changed him, “The internment did shape who I am – and from that teenage period on, I’ve been actively engaged in the political process.”
The Pilgrimage climaxed Sunday evening with a cultural program at the Ross Ragland Theater. “This is a powerful therapeutic process,” noted Ina. And, it may also be a lesson to help prevent history from repeating itself.
Over 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were held in 10 internment camps across the United States.
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