Repeating Images: Prisons within Prisons

Today's repeating image is of the jail within the Amache Internment camp. This concrete structure is one of the only remaining intact buildings from the internment era. It actually served as a dual purpose structure as a cold storage locker for the general store and a small time lock-up for odd incidents when residents of the camp became unruly, typically of evenings when men would become intoxicated on contraband sake or other alcohol.

At the site of the Tule Lake internment camp, one lone, concrete structure still stands in the barren land. This too was a jail for the camp. However, it held more serious "criminals;" dissidents who eventually were taken to the county jail in Alturas, California, before facing more serious charges for being unwilling to pledge allegiance to America and fight in its military and to disavow any loyalty to Japan.

Imprisonment within imprisonment. Kind of funny to think about.