Digital History>eXplorations>Japanese American Internment>The Internment Experience>The Tule Lake Experience

I was thirteen-years-old when we were at Tule Lake…. The most upsetting experience happened to me when martial law was declared throughout the camp because of a food riot. We were told that the military police would come to search each one of our families in the barracks. The two MP’s looked formidable as they walked in with guns at their side and asked roughly if we had any weapons, liquor or cameras. To be forced to let the MP’s in our small humble quarters seemed like such an invasion of personal privacy that the emotional effect of the search still haunts me.

Quoted in Werner, Through the Eyes of Innocents,p. 96