U.S. senators have cleared the way for the Amache former World War II Japanese-American internment camp in rural southeastern Colorado to become a federal historic site managed by the National Park Service.
Senators unanimously approved the Amache National Historic Site Act to make camp ruins – on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the U.S. government’s forced internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during the war – eligible for increased preservation funds.
Colorado lawmakers led by Sen. Michael Bennet pushed through this legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. John Hickenlooper. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) had been the lone holdout, opposing federal acquisition of any land without an offset, until Bennet brokered a deal late Monday.
The push began with House legislation introduced by Reps. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and Ken Buck (R-Colo.), which passed the House in July on a 416 to 2 vote. A majority of House lawmakers still must sign off on the Senate amendment added to secure Lee’s vote. (The current owner of the 480-acre site, the town of Granada, will donate the land to the National Park Service.)
This action means Amache camp survivors including Ken Kitajima, 91, may have their stories presented more widely and interpreted for large numbers of visitors. Kitajima was a teenager confined to the Amache camp from 1943 until 1945. He remembers the barbed wire fencing, guard towers, military men with machine guns and search lights.
When Japanese “warlords” bombed Pearl Harbor, school classmates in Campbell, California, chased Kitajima and his sister, throwing rocks, forcing them to walk home instead of riding a bus.
“When the government gave us two weeks to leave, with only what you can carry, I was kind of glad we were leaving because we didn’t have to go to school and get chased home by boys throwing rocks at us. But it was a terrible experience,” Kitajima said.
“We were citizens, most of us. We lost everything. It was mass hysteria when Japan dropped the bombs on Pearl Harbor. It magnified the racist attitudes. A lot of people didn’t like the Japanese. We were told to move out and we were called all kinds of names. It was racially oriented. The Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the executive order. When he signed it, that is the day I call the true ‘day of infamy’.”
Bennet called the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II “a shameful part of our country’s history” and said this act “will preserve Amache’s story to ensure future generations can learn from this dark chapter in our history.”
Ruins of food halls, military police stations, a cemetery and barracks can be found at the site, which has been maintained since 1993 by Granada High School history teacher and dean John Hopper and scores of his students. The town of Granada has owned the site, already listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“This is going to take some of the pressure off us,” Hopper said.
He and his students began by mowing weeds in the Amache cemetery. Eventually, they opened a museum. Japanese Americans supported the effort. Hopper and his students, who met with lawmakers, still plan to manage their museum exhibit, which features new research and has expanded into larger buildings in Granada.
“This story needs to be told — so that we don’t repeat a wrong,” Hopper said. “Hopefully, preserving sites like this will teach the youth, our future leaders, that it is wrong.”
The order by Roosevelt on Feb. 19, 1942 forced 120,000 Japanese Americans to leave their homes in the western United States. The U.S. government imprisoned them at 10 camps in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas and Colorado. More than 7,000 were held between 1942 and 1945 at Amache, which is named after a Cheyenne chief’s daughter.
