University Screening Unveils New Tule Lake Research

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On October 30 I had the privilege of presenting Resistance at Tule Lake at an event with University of Maryland students presenting their new research on police reports from the concentration camp. In Summer and Fall 2019, these young researchers from the UMD Digital Curation Innovation Center (DCIC) analyzed “Internal Security Case Reports” on incarcerated Japanese Americans. The reports, numbering over 25 thousand, have been hidden away in War Relocation Authority files for over seven decades. 15,648 come from the Tule Lake concentration camp. They were written by camp investigators, police officers, and directors of internal security.

 

Screening Resistance at Tule Lake at the DCIC’s homecoming event was a high point in our educational outreach. Having studied the history of the Tule Lake concentration camp for six years in the process of making my film, I was deeply impressed with the research DCIC students presented at the event. They uncovered significant incidents previously unknown, and synthesized data to bring out meaningful themes that light the way to further study. The energy and focus of these students was a real inspiration, and has contributed to the understanding of Japanese American history.

I’m still looking over the research presented by the five groups, titled below. I got a chance to talk with the researchers on a couple of the projects, including “Mapping events and people in Tule Lake,” which was particularly revelatory because it uncovered acts of resistance I previously didn’t know about, including:

The researchers also analyzed where members of resistance networks lived, including the members of the Negotiating Committee who met with Project Director Raymond Best during events leading up to the Tule Lake “riot” and the U.S. Army entering the camp to impose martial law. I’m still in contact with professor Richard Marciano, who spearheaded the entire project, and the students, to continue this research and deepen our understanding of Tule Lake resistance.

 

Resistance at Tule Lake: A Conversation with the Filmmaker and iSchool Digital Curators (read the team’s draft paper, Reframing Digital Curation Practices through a Computational Thinking Framework)

1. Developing name registries across the camps

    * Integrating the various lists of incarcerees

2. Integrating vital records at Tule Lake

    * Assessing health conditions in the camp

3. Designing controlled vocabularies for Tule Lake

    * Assessing arbitrary and harsh treatments of incarcerees

4. Mapping events and people in Tule Lake

    * Towards a spatial representation of incarcerees in the camp

5. Computing and visualizing social networks in Tule Lake

    * Visualizing acts of resistance in the camp