[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 132 (Tuesday, December 5, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2088]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




INTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION TO STUDY THE FEASIBILITY OF CREATING A UNIT 
      OF THE NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM AT TULE LAKE SEGREGATION CENTER

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. DORIS O. MATSUI

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 5, 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.

                          ____________________