Introdution Of Legislation To Study The Feasibility Of Creating A Unit Of The National Park System At Tule Lake Segregation Center

INTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION TO STUDY THE FEASIBILITY OF CREATING A UNIT OF THE NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM AT TULE LAKE SEGREGATION CENTER -- (Extensions of Remarks - December 05, 2006)

* Ms. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join with my colleague, Representative JOHN DOOLITTLE of California, to introduce legislation which is important to California, to Japanese-American communities all across the country, and to our collective understanding of history as Americans. This legislation will initiate a resource study of Tule Lake to determine whether or not it should be included as a unit of the National Park System. However, it represents so much more than just another government study.

* Indeed, the information which will be produced from the examination of Tule Lake's potential for inclusion in the National Park System will begin to ease the wrongs of the past and point the way toward a future devoid of prejudice and fear. Passing this bill will help ensure that current and future generations of Americans learn from and avoid repeating the wrongs that were committed during the internment of Japanese and Americans of Japanese descent during World War II.

* It has been nearly sixty-five years since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. From Poston, Arizona--where I was born--to Minidoka, Idaho, productive and loyal Japanese Americans were interned under this executive order in camps which robbed them of their dignity, denied them the opportunity to build their lives, and undercut the very freedom which had attracted these individuals and their ancestors to America in the first place. Few can imagine such an episode occurring in a nation such as ours, which was in the midst of fighting to defeat the forces of tyranny and evil abroad.

* Over the more than six decades which have passed since that fateful decision was made to imprison so many innocent people, much progress has been made to analyze, redress, and commemorate the crimes perpetrated against Japanese Americans during this dark period.

* My late husband, Representative Robert T. Matsui, for example, was integral in passing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which represented a first step toward healing the wounds suffered by those who were interned. But righting the wrongs of our forebears does not absolve us of our duty to guard against their recurrence, no matter how much we may have increased our tolerance and respect for the many diverse cultures which comprise this great tapestry of a country.

* Indeed, as the time of the internment becomes more and more remote, our responsibility to learn its lessons falls ever more squarely upon our shoulders. We can accomplish this solemn task by preserving the locations and structures which stood at places like Manzanar, Heart Mountain, and Tule Lake, so that our children and grandchildren can learn these lessons of tolerance, understanding, and loyalty.

* Including Tule Lake Segregation Center as a part of the National Park System will add a critical element to the federal government's inventory of Japanese internment sites. Tule Lake was a camp like any other until the fall of 1943, when it was converted into a maximum-security detainment center for those Japanese Americans who were deemed to be exceptionally disloyal and dangerous. The vast majority of the 18,000 internees at Tule Lake Segregation Center were there because of their answers to one of two questions on a government loyalty questionnaire, which caused them to be categorized as ``disloyal.'' Having been uprooted from their homes in 1941, their lives were upended for a second time when they were transferred from one internment camp to the even more remote installation at Tule Lake, near the California-Oregon border.

* For this reason, Mr. Speaker, it is crucial that Tule Lake join sites like Manzanar and Minidoka as units of the National Park System. As a segregation center, Tule Lake embodies some of the most wrenching aspects of the internment. It was there that the unfair choices between heritage and current loyalties were most harshly forced on Japanese Americans. As such, Tule Lake represents an additional perspective to be added to the historical record of the internment. Including it as a unit of the National Park System will ensure that the historical narrative which is unique to Tule Lake is never lost, but instead learned and understood by current and future generations.

* I urge my colleagues to support this bill, which will help marshal the resources of the federal government to ensure that the experiences of World War II and of the internment do not simply contribute to further resentment and anger. With this legislation, we will continue to convert the pain and regret of the internment into a positive force for change in the future.

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