WWII Valor in the Pacific

The Tule Lake Unit became a National Monument along with eight other units in Hawaii and Alaska by Presidential proclamation in December 2008. Tule Lake Unit includes a Civil Conservation Corp camp, a Prisoner of War camp and sites where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during WWII. The Tule Lake Unit of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument in Modoc County, California, began as the Tule Lake War Relocation Center before it was renamed the Tule Lake Segregation Center in 1943, to communicate a fundamental shift that had taken place, distinguishing it from the rest of the American concentration camps for people of Japanese ancestry. From 1943, Tule Lake Segregation Center operated primarily as the site designated to warehouse inmates who were deemed a threat to the authorities charged with maintaining order in the ten War Relocation Centers. The 'bad and disloyal' were duly removed from the 'bad but loyal' and segregated at Tule Lake. Tule Lake Segregation Center was the largest (in terms of population) and most controversial of the camps, and did not close until after the war, in March 1946. Tule Lake was then registered as a California Historical Landmark. In December 2008, the Tule Lake Unit was designated by President George W. Bush as one of nine sites—the only one in the contiguous 48 states—to be part of the new World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument.