Tule Lake Internment Farming


They knew what to grow with the warm days and cool nights.
Jimi Yamaichi takes us out to what were the Tule Lake Internment – Segregation Center farm fields. The rich soil, reclaimed from Tule Lake by the Klamath Reclamation Project, proved to as rich as any soil on earth. Internment farmers, many from the San Joaquin Valley, raised a wide variety of crops.


Trouble Brewing Over the Horizon.
In August 1944 the farm fields were closed to Tule Lake internees due to camp unrest. Workers were brought in from other camps to harvest the crops. They were housed in the CCC Camp across the Tule Lake Basin to the northwest from the Tule Lake Segregation Center. Jimi says they were paid a dollar a day while workers from the Segregation Center received pennies for their labor. And then there is his story about giant hogs with tusks and how they were killed.


In the last days of Tule lake Internment – Segregation Center.
Jimi Yamaichi was part of the crew that closed the camp after all the internees had left. He found found shipping papers that listed, as example, five railroad cars were headed with grade A – number 1 produce for Manzanar and five had no destination for “security reasons”. Where did the food go?

more tule lake internment - segregation videos icons.

FarmingBarracksJail-StockadeCamp LifeFood in Camp
Sake-Coal-CrossAfter SegregationRemnantsTowers and Fences
Parks & MonumentsLatrine LifePilgrimage

©2013 Anders Tomlinson and Jimi Yamaichi.