Guide to the Robert Billigmeier Collection
CEMA 60
Finding aid prepared by CEMA staff
UC Santa Barbara Library, Department of Special Collections
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California, 93106-9010
Phone: (805) 893-3062
Email: special@library.ucsb.edu; URL: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/special-collections
05/05/2010
Title: Robert Billigmeier collection
Identifier/Call Number: CEMA 60
Contributing Institution:
UC Santa Barbara Library, Department of Special Collections
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
2.5 linear feet
(4 document boxes and 1 photo box)
Date (bulk): Bulk, 1942-1943
Date (inclusive): 1940-1987
Abstract: The Robert Billigmeier collection holds some of the documents of the University of California's Evacuation and Resettlement
Study begining in 1942. The collection contains reports conducted under the direction of University of California, Berkeley
Professor Dorothy Swain Thomas. There are also publications such as Professor's Dorothy Swaine Thomas' book
The Spoilage and the
WRA: A Story of Human Conservation. There is a scrapbook produced by the students at Tule Lake, photographs of the internment camp and photos of Billigmeier's
personal life.
General Physical Description note: Four document boxes and one photo box
creator:
Billigmeier, Robert Henry
Conditions Governing Use note
Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or
quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given
on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.
Conditions Governing Access note
none
Series Description
Series I Research Studies, 1942-1987
This series includes the
Tule Lake Monograph, by Robert Billigmeier, written in 1976. It also contains the subseries of The University of California study of evacuation
and resettelment at Tule Lake, composed by various authors. The study is arranged according to an outline provided in the
study. There are also three writings composed by Robert Spencer on the Gila River internment camp and two post internment
camp articles.
Series II Publications, 1942-1979
Series two is composed of two subseries, the first subseries being Newsletters, Newspaper and Magazines. It contains newsletters
published in the early 40's and in 1950. It also holds newspapers and magazines published at Tule Lake from 1942-1943. The
second subseries is Books and Booklets, concerning Tule Lake and other Japanese-American internment camps, composed by a variety
of authors. The books and booklets are arranged alphabetically.
Series III Scrapbook, 1942
This is a scrapbook created in Tule Lake by the Japanese-American students.
Series IV Photographs, 1939-1952
This Photograph album contains approximately 300 black and white photographs of Billigmeier's personal life and his stay at
Tule Lake.
Scope and Contents note
The Robert Billigmeier Collection contains photographs, a scrapbook, published and unpublished documents regarding the Tule
Lake Relocation Center from 1942 to 1943. However, the entire collection ranges from 1940 to 1987.
Series I contains research reports concerning the organization of Tule Lake and experiences undergone by the students, as seen through
the students personality cards. In the personality cards students wrote about their day and their feelings regarding specific
topics such as democracy. The series also contains documents written after 1943 such as the monograph, "Tule Lake in 1976,"
by Robert Billigmeier, "A Victim of the Evacuation and Resettlement Study (JERS)" by Violet Kazue de Cristoforo in 1987 and
"Educational Norms in Japanese Immigrant Communities" written by Katsuhiko in 1976.
Series II contains Tule Lake publications such as the
Tri State High Magazine,
Tulean Dispatch Magazine and books such as
Impounded People: Japanese-Americans in the Relocation Centers, and
The Displaced Japanese-Americans previously titled
Issei Nisei Kibei in
Fortune magazine.
Series III contains a scrapbook created by the students at the relocation center in 1942.
Series IV consists of photographs dating from 1939 to 1952. The photos are from the Tule Lake relocation center and of Billigmeiers
personal life, including his graduation and family trips.
Biographical/Historical note
Robert Billigmeier (1914-1996) was a UCSB Sociology professor who specialized in the areas of demographics, social movements
and European and American ethnic groups. He was very interested in the Romansh Culture. In 1951 he earned his PH.D. on the
history of the Romansh Culture from Stanford University. Billigmeier provided many scholarly contributions such as
A Crisis in Swiss Pluralism published in 1979. The book provided an extensive analysis on the history of the Raeto Romansh over the past thousand years.
He also wrote books about Swiss immigrants in America and German Americans.
In the autumn of 1942 he was employed at the Tule Lake Relocation Center as a field research assistant on the Evacuation and
Resettlement Study of the University of California. During his research at Tule Lake he observed the Japanese-American interns
and the overall lifestyle at the internment camps. Twenty-four years later, 1976, he worked on a monograph of Tule Lake which
includes diary excerpts, short essays and letters by Japanese-American high school students written in the Tule Lake relocation
center.
Billigmeier was also actively involed in the UCSB, Santa Barbara and Switzerland communities. At UCSB he was the foreign student
advisor from 1955 to 1963, associate director for the Education Abroad Program from 1964 to 1976 and member and supporter
of the Faculty Club. In Santa Barbara he worked for international cooperation, fair housing and family planning. While visiting
Swizerland he became involved with community organizations for the preservation of the Romansh culture.
Related Archival Materials note
Harold S. Jacoby Nisei Collection, Mss27, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
Japanese American evacuation and resettlement records, BANC MSS 67/14 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Preferred Citation note
Robert Billigmeier Collection, CEMA 60, Department of Special Collections, University Library, University of California, Santa
Barbara
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Tule Lake Relocation Center.
Japanese -- United States
Newly cataloged
World War, 1939-1945 -- Evacuation of civilians
Series I Research Studies
1942-1987
Box 1, Folder 1-32
Monograph, Tule Lake
1976
University of California study of evacution and resettlement at Tule Lake
1942-1943
Box 1, Folder 33
Outline of University of California study of evacuation and resettlement
December 1, 1942
Box 1, Folder 34
An introduction to Tule Lake by Shibutahi
November 10, 1942
Box 1, Folder 35-37
The first six months at Tule Lake
Box 2, Folder 1-4
Social structure of the community
Box 2, Folder 5-6
The co-op movement in Tule Lake
November 15, 1942
Box 2, Folder 7-8
The Christian church in Tule Lake by James Sakoda
October 1, 1942
Box 2, Folder 9
Buddhist church by Dr. Thomas
Box 2, Folder 10
History of the Tule Lake Union Church as told to James Sakoda by Rev. Kuroda by James Sakoda
September 30, 1942
Box 2, Folder 11-14
Recreational organization by Frank Miyamoto
Box 2, Folder 15-16
Tule Lake recreation center community affairs report
August 20-September 20, 1942
Box 2, Folder 17-18
Social groups: creative writers Caucasian-Japanese relationship by Mr. Cook
Box 2, Folder 19
Fire department of Tule Lake
Box 2, Folder 20
Legal aid department of Tule Lake
Box 2, Folder 21-22
Records office by James Sakoda
Septemeber 17, 1942
Box 2, Folder 23
Scrap lumber conflict by James Sakoda
September 16, 1942
Box 2, Folder 24-25
Broadcast affair Tule Lake
Box 2, Folder 26
Disorganization and reorganization, II disorganization of the family by Shibutani
December 17, 1942
Box 2, Folder 27
Educational institutions
December 12, 1942
Box 2, Folder 28-29
Social reoganization in Tule Lake by Shibutani
January 2, 1943
Box 2, Folder 30-33
Messhalls in Tule Lake by James Sakoda
Box 2, Folder 36-39
Firebreak gang by Richard S. Nishimoto
Box 2, Folder 40
Miscellaneous scattered pages
Box 3, Folder 3-11
Personality cards chapters 1-14
1942-1943
Box 2, Folder 41
University of California, evacuation and settlement study by Robert Spencer
Box 2, Folder 42
The Gila River WRA relocation center, Rivers, Pinal County, Arizona by Robert Spencer
August 23, 1942
Box 2, Folder 43-45
Recreational activities in the Gila community by Rober Spencer
November 2, 1942
Box 2, Folder 46
Educational norms in Japanese immigrant communities by Katsuhiko
May 1976
Box 3, Folder 1
The persistence of ethnic solidarity among the Japanese Americans of the San Francisco Bay Area: An exploratory study of communication
in a community without an ecological base
by Carl K. Mayeda
Decemeber 1974
Box 3, Folder 2
A victim of the evacuation and resettlement study (JERS) by Violet Kazue de Cristoforo
1987
Series II Publications
1942-1979
Newsletter, Newspaper and Magazines
1942-1954
Box 3, Folder 12
The Daily Tulean Dispatch
1942-1943
Box 3, Folder 13
Japanese folk beliefs and practices, Tule Lake, California by Marvin K. Opler
October-December, 1950
Box 3, Folder 14
Pacific Citizen (Salt Lake City, Utah)
April 14, 1954
Box 3, Folder 15
Tri State High Magazine
April 30, 1943
Box 3, Folder 16-19
Tulean Dispatch Magazine
1943
Box 4
Bosworth, Allan R.
America's Concentration Camps. New York: W.W. Norton,
1967
Box 4
The displaced Japanese-Americans by American Council on Public Affairs (contains information on Issi, Neisi and Kibi)
April 1944
Box 4
Eaton, Allen H.
Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps. New York: Harper & Brothers
1952
Box 4
Miyakawa, Edward.
Tule Lake. Waldport, Oregon: House by the Sea
1979
Box 4
Spicer, Edward II., et al.
Impounded People: Japanese-Americans in the Relocation Centers. Tuscon: University of Arizona, Press
1969
Box 4
Thomas, Dorothy Swaine, and Richard S. Nishimoto.
The Spoilage. Bekeley: University of California Press,
1964
Box 4
A Tule Lake interlude (The Harold S. Jacoby Nisei Collection includes a digital copy of this book on Online Archives of California. It is located
at: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt4779n6vr/ )
May 27, 1942-1943
Box 4
United States Department of the Interior. War Relocation Authority.
WRA: A story of Human Conservation.Washington, D.C.: Superintendent of Documents, GPO
1946
Series III Scrapbook
1942
Series IV Photographs
1939-1952
Acquisition Information
In 2003 David O'Kane donated a photo taken at Tule Lake Internment Camp on August 30, 1944 of the Procurement and Shoe Rationing
Department. This has been added to the end of the photo album.