Barbara Takei

barbaratakei

Barbara Takei is a Sansei from Sacramento, CA, who was raised in Detroit and attended Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, D.C. Barbara Takei is CFO of the non-profit Tule Lake Committee. For the past decade she has researched and written about Tule Lake’s segregation history and served as an advocate and fundraiser for the Tule Lake concentration camp site.

Updated January 2012

culture en

Silk Cocoon Shatters the Myth of the “Model Minority”

Por Barbara Takei
15 Jan 2013

It was not until her mother died that Satsuki Ina came to understand the historic event that deeply affected her family—a part of World War II history that has been long suppressed within the Japanese American community.“My mother had it all set up for me when she left me that box,” Satsuki Ina said of the small metal box she found at her deceased mother’s home. “I was stunned by what she described.” From that box emerged the little-known story of Japanese American resistance to their wartime II incarceration as told in Ina’s new film, From a Silk …

continue a ler

war en

Internment Stigma

Por Barbara Takei
18 Mai 2012

A remarkable journey began as a handful of Nisei survivors gathered on the wind-swept plains of Bismarck, North Dakota, at the site of what was once Ft. Lincoln, a World War II-era Department of Justice prison. What made this weekend so memorable was that the program, hosted by Native Americans, was one of those welcome occasions where a part of history that is little known within the Japanese American community was acknowledged and validated. These former inmates at Tule Lake Segregation Center—who renounced their citizenship and were sent to the DOJ internment camp in Bismarck, ND&mda…

continue a ler

war en

TULE LAKE’S BLOCK 42: A Little-Known Story of Wartime Civil Disobedience

Por Barbara Takei
9 Mai 2012

Referred to as the camp for “troublemakers” and “bad” and “disloyal” people, Tule Lake’s reputation still carries stigma for those who were incarcerated there. The stigma remains so pervasive that most Nisei who refused to answer “yes” to the so-called “loyalty questionnaire” questions 27 and 28 some 65 years ago don’t like talking about what one Nisei referred to as Tule Lake’s “dirty linen.” On December 5, 2008, President George W. Bush acted to change all that, designating the Tule Lake Segregation C…

continue a ler

media en

Review of Prisoners and Patriots

Por Barbara Takei
28 Fev 2012

A recent film on Santa Fe, Prisoners and Patriots: The Untold Story of Japanese Internment in Santa Fe, according to the film’s writer/director/producer Neil H. Simon, is the first film to tell the story of the WWII era internment camp run by the Department of Justice in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The film (which was shown at Day of Remembrance events in Northern California and scheduled at JANM in April) assembles a rich collage of material related to Santa Fe’s history as a Department of Justice (DOJ) internment camp where so-called “enemy aliens” of Japanese descent wer…

continue a ler

war en

Deporting “Troublemakers” Redux

Por Barbara Takei
27 Jan 2012

Time of Remembrance observances are coming up in another few weeks, a good time to do something to assure, “never again.” This year, in the context of the National Defense Authorization Act that provides for indefinite military detention of the accused, we need to be more vigilant than ever, especially with two companion pieces of legislation introduced this session of Congress. The two bills, S 1698 and HR 3166, resurrect the specter of the little-known government denationalization and deportation program that the Department of Justice used to strip nearly 6,000 Americans of thei…

continue a ler