Tule Lake Segregation Center stands as a testament to the resilience of thousands of Japanese Americans who exercised their rights to protest and resist in the face of racial discrimination, incarceration, and direct attacks on their identities as American citizens. Beginning in 1942, the federal government forcibly removed over 126,000 people of Japanese descent—two-thirds of whom were American citizens—from their homes and incarcerated them at sites like Tule Lake. Today, Tule Lake is a place that honors the brave contributions of Japanese Americans who fought to protect the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution.

From 1943-1946, Tule Lake Segregation Center served as a maximum-security prison for Japanese Americans who protested race-based incarceration by refusing to answer or answering “no” to a government issued “loyalty” questionnaire.

Today, a token 37-acre portion of the Tule Lake Segregation Center has been designated as a National Monument, but the primary 1,100-acre site is unprotected. For the survivors and descendants of those incarcerated there, the entire Tule Lake site is sacred ground, a place of suffering, where 331 prisoners died. It is a place of community pilgrimage and private contemplation, yet staffing and public access is limited, and there is no adequate facility for larger groups to gather. After World War II, the majority of the Segregation Center’s structures were demolished or removed, and a rural airfield now occupies 359 acres at the heart of the former incarceration camp site.

The Federal Aviation Authority and Modoc County are seeking to construct a 3-mile long, 8- to 10-foot-high security fence around the airfield, which could permanently alter the setting, viewshed, and archaeological integrity of Tule Lake. Survivors and descendants believe the airfield desecrates this sacred site.

The Tule Lake Committee, an organization of survivors and descendants whose families were incarcerated at Tule Lake, is leading advocacy efforts to relocate the airfield from this sacred place. Protecting this American civil rights site would honor the people who resisted injustice here and provide opportunities to expand public visitation and interpretation at the National Monument.

Tule Lake Segregation Center was named to the National Trust's list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places for 2026.