"Strictly Masculine": Reforming and Performing Manhood at Tule Lake, 1942-1946

This dissertation explores how the tension between ethnic retention and assimilation influenced perceptions of Nikkei manhood at the Tule Lake Incarceration Center between 1942-1946, moreover how it influenced individual decision making. The Tule Lake Center offers a unique case study even among the War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps. It was the largest and most overcrowded incarceration center. It was one of the initial “permanent centers” to open in March 1942, and it was the last to close on March 28, 1946, more than eight months after Japan surrendered to the Allied forces. When it became the segregation center for “dissidents” and “disloyals,” it also was uniquely representative with incarcerees from the nine other centers whom the US government relocated to Tule Lake. By exploring how ideas and performance of manhood reformed in the context of camp life this dissertation asserts, Tule Lake was an important counterbalance to the 442nd all Nikkei Regiment. The cultural and civil “disobedience” displayed by Nikkei men at Tule Lake represents a history debunk the stereotypes of the submissive, quiet, conciliatory, and nonconfrontational Asian American. This story is often overlooked with the burgeoning of the model minority myth associated with Asian as the key to proper citizenship in the postwar years. This dissertation demonstrates how the continued legacy of resistance to government policies was a way of asserting masculinity as well. Nikkei men demonstrated both mentsu and the exercising of American democracy challenging the very nature of incarceration, the loyalty questionnaire, and conscription.