PBA Galleries

Two items:

• Tule Lake Internment Camp High School - 1945 Last Commencement Program. 3 pp. 6x9", on bluish-grey paper, with 8½x15", 2-page mimeographed program for Commencement Week, October 16, 1945. Perhaps because of its “segregated” population of Japanese-American dissidents, Tule Lake was the last of the 10 internment camps to close – eight months after the end of the War, in March 1946.  Most of the 100,000 Japanese-American “evacuees” from other camps had already returned to their homes when the last senior class of Tri-State High School held its graduation ceremony, two months after Hiroshima and the surrender of Japan. The printing of these papers was considerably better than the earlier imprints listed above, and the ceremony was typical of any high school in America, with speeches, award presentations, vocal and violin solos - and a skit pointedly titled, “Foreigners Settled America”.  Scarce, like all imprints of the high school at the Tule Lake internment camp.
• Round Up [Yearbook] - 1941. Theodore Roosevelt High School. 9x12". Unpaginated, approximately 125 pp. Extensively illustrated. The personal copy of an 18 year-old Japanese-American woman, with many ink inscriptions from fellow students. She had planned to attend college and become an artist – but, within a year, she and her family would be “relocated” to an internment camp in Utah, while many of her friends would be sent to Manzanar. Roosevelt, in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, was one of the largest high schools in the country – and, for its time, one of the most ethnically and racially diverse. The Yearbook editor was Japanese-American, as was the Student Body Vice President, the Captain of the Tennis Team and the ROTC Commander. The President was African-American; many of the Student Council members were Latino.  Pictured on the same page as the Japanese Club were members of  the Jewish Club and the multi-racial “World Friendship Club”.