Case of the Day: Tule Lake Comm. v. City of Tulelake, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42459 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 11, 2020)

Summary:

Plaintiff is the committee to commemorate the Tule Lake camp in which Japanese Americans were interned during World War II. Plaintiff sued to enjoin the City of Tulelake's sale of its municipal airport, because two-thirds of the airport site was the location of the barracks in which the Japanese Americans were imprisoned. 

The parties reached an interim settlement agreement, in which they agreed that the plaintiff can prevail only if the controlling government authorities appear likely to approve the designation of the airport site as a national park. The court found that letters from the former acting director of the National Park Service and the current Deputy Regional Director of the NPS Pacific West Region were not sufficient to establish that the site was likely to be approved as a national park, and granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the claim by specifically enforcing the interim settlement agreement.

Takeaway:

Worth remembering a major moment in Asian American history any time it appears before the judicial system.