Back to School, 1944

Tri-State High School Yearbook, Tule Lake, California, 1944-45

Eighty pages, full of teacher portraits, school spirit and activities, along with the faces of students who, American as they were, did all they could to be positive and to on hold to belief in a better future.

Large view.

Which, of course, fills the book with irony.

It's in the breezy, period cartoons, like this map

Large view.

The same cartoonist did the three-page schedule of events; here, here, and here.

There's the dreamy "co-ed" in a romantic bit of the arid scenery—

And this—

My sister had sent links to this yearbook a while ago. While looking for it again, I happened upon this document: scrapbooks assembled by Emily Light, an elementary school teacher who chose to teach at Tule Lake, Jerome, and Topaz camps and record the internees' experience. Along with camp newsletters she clipped newspaper stories from the outside, including any voices that spoke out about the whole thing.