Tulelake Journal: Japanese-American Pilgrimage to Internment Camp — Tulelake Journal

Nearly 400 Japanese-Americans journeyed from June 30 to July 3 to this remote corner of California, where 18,789 people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated during World War II. The turnout was one of the highest ever for the four-day pilgrimage, which occurs every other year around the Fourth of July, organizers said. They surmise that as the number of the camp’s survivors dwindles, there is a growing urgency to understand — and reinterpret — what has been a hidden subchapter in America’s history.

Of the 10 internment camps in which about 120,000 Japanese-Americans were confined during the war, it was Tule Lake that held those branded “disloyal,” the ones who answered “no” to two critical questions in a loyalty test administered by the federal government.

After the end of the war, the no-noes, as they were known, not only struggled to find a place in mainstream society, but also were regarded with suspicion by other Japanese-Americans, whose pledge of undivided loyalty and search for larger acceptance could have been threatened by the no-noes.

For decades, the no-noes themselves never explained what lay behind their answers. Most, in fact, never spoke about Tule Lake at all.

“I came here because I want to know why my parents told me never to talk about Tule Lake,” said James Katsumi Nehira, 68, who was riding a bus on a tour here with his daughter, Cherilyn, 37. “They were ostracized and ashamed they were in Tule Lake. I never talked about it. I honored my dad’s wishes until he passed away.”

But in recent years, former detainees have begun speaking during the pilgrimages about why they, or more likely their parents, chose not to answer “yes.” Their stories, as they have filtered out of this small circle into the wider Japanese-American community, have added layers of complexity to the long-held view of the no-noes as simply disloyal troublemakers.

In early 1943, about a year after Japanese-Americans were rounded up into the camps, the American authorities, seeking Japanese language speakers in the military, distributed a loyalty questionnaire to all adults. Question No. 27 asked draft-age men whether they were willing to serve in the armed forces. No. 28 asked whether detainees would “swear unqualified allegiance to the United States” and “forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government.”

Anything except a simple “yes” to the two questions meant relocation to Tule Lake, which became the most heavily guarded of the camps. Army tanks were stationed here, reinforcing the security provided by 28 guard towers and a seven-foot-high barbed wire fence.

Osamu Hasegawa, 90, recalled that his parents answered “no” after a heated family debate. Because his parents were born in Japan — Japanese immigrants were not allowed to become American citizens until 1952 because of discriminatory immigration laws — they feared that forswearing allegiance to the country of their birth would render them stateless while Mr. Hasegawa and his American-born siblings remained in the United States.

After his parents answered “no,” Mr. Hasegawa became one of the nearly 6,000 Japanese-Americans at Tule Lake to renounce their American citizenship.

“They wanted to go back to Japan to keep the family together,” Mr. Hasegawa said.

Most of the family went to Japan. But his older brother Hiroshi, who had tried to persuade his parents to answer “yes,” remained, eventually joining the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the Army’s famed Japanese-American unit.

Like most who went to Japan, Mr. Hasegawa and his family regained their citizenship, and they returned to the United States after 11 years. But relations between the brothers remained strained for decades.

“They reconciled only two years ago at the last pilgrimage here,” said Carol Hasegawa, the daughter of Hiroshi, who died shortly after the reconciliation.

View the original article here

Phoenix Journal: Tortilla Factory Offers a Satisfying Parade, in Corn and Flour

The lag time from production line to shelf is negligible, the seconds it takes to extend an arm and drop the packed tortillas onto a table. Some shoppers pick their tortillas based on temperature: the warmer they feel, the fresher they are. Others lob questions to the men and women on the factory floor — “Was this really made today?”

The operation is as unusual as it is entertaining, like watching oranges being picked, squeezed and bottled right before the eyes. It unfolds daily, over back-to-back eight-hour shifts at a market named Ranch, but nicknamed “rancho” by the Hispanics who make up the bulk of its clientele.

“Can I have three pounds of masa?” Abigail Tome, 25, asked one of the factory’s workers, who handed her a bag of dough made of soaked and ground corn, which is used for tortillas and also other foods, like tamales.

It is similar to the dough she used to make at home when she lived in Veracruz, Mexico, and still had time to make tortillas from scratch, Ms. Tome said. It is just made faster, though, because of the machines and the many hands the factory has to mix it up.

Tortillas are a Mexican staple of transnational appeal here, bridging divisions carved by Arizona’s tough stance on immigration and reaching far beyond Latin American borders.

The factory, at the Ranch Market store on North 16th Street, employs a pair of Iraqi refugees to whom flour tortillas have become a replacement for the flat bread known as khubz. There are also Cubans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and, of course, Mexicans manning the machines like the rounder, which turns the masa into balls that are then pressed and cooked in 500-degree ovens at a rate of eight dozen disks a minute.

Refugees from Somalia buy Ranch Market tortillas as a substitute for a pancake-like bread called canjeelo. Koreans have taken to using them to wrap pieces of spicy barbecued pork, like a taco. Foodies like them because they are the closest thing to an authentic tortilla that they can find at a supermarket here.

“I’ve never been to Mexico, but whenever I think of how homemade tastes, I think of this stuff,” said Bryan Davis, 28, placing a pack of fresh tortillas in his shopping basket.

Among Mexicans, tortilla allegiances vary based on the length of time they have lived in this country and where in Mexico they come from. Jose Loera, senior director of the tortilleria, as the factory is known, said those from the south prefer corn over flour, a favorite of northern Mexicans like himself.

New immigrants regardless of precedence often stick with corn, Mr. Loera said, perhaps because it is the type of tortilla most often made at home. But it does not take long until they change allegiances, he said. Flour tortillas last longer in the fridge and they are more malleable, suiting tacos, quesadillas, burritos and its American equivalent, the wrap.

There are seven Ranch Markets here, as well as two apiece in New Mexico and El Paso. Each has its own tortilla factory, which altogether produce 2.2 million tortillas a week, of various flavors — like spinach, wheat, spicy tomato and chili — and sizes.

The store on North 16th Street is the only one whose factory produces both corn and flour tortillas, in a nod to the diversified public it serves. At one point, it churned out cactus tortillas called nopalitos, after the cactus leaf that was its main ingredient, the nopal. The leaves were too fibrous, though, and just would not stick to the dough, so they were discontinued.

The factory also gave up on producing blue-corn tortillas, which Mr. Loera said are very popular in the Ranch Market store in Albuquerque.

“In Arizona,” he went on, “tortilla is something that’s either yellow or white.”

View the original article here