Colorado Governor Welcomes Japanese-Americans: Colorado County Life Magazine

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r)& 3 r,: I An overall view of the Granada Relocation Center, looking north and west, shows temporary army -style barracks. There were 30 blocks each with 12 barracks, a small recreation hall, combined shower, latrine and laundry building and a mess hall. Colorado 8overnor welcomes a ar se- erica by Linda R., Wommack n the eastern plains of Colorado, the founda- tion ruins of a "relocation" camp can be Nwoof found, a solemn reminder of Colorado history. Located one mile west and one mile south of Granada on County Road 23.5, the site is marked with a stone memorial to those interned in the camp. Perhaps most poignant of all is the tiny cemetery located just south of the site, The remains and memorials, while honoring the people forced onto the site, remind us of a sad moment in U. S. history. In the mass hysteria following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,1941, many Americans suddenly began to look at friends and neighbors as ene- mies. American citizens felt these Japanese people were potential traitors. The popular logic of 1941 America was "once a Japanese, always a Japanese," The general feel- ing was that if it came to a choice, the Japanese would align themselves with their native homeland: In most cases, nothing could have been further from the truth. The general attitude against the Japanese gained ground among the political leaders and the media. In the media, the most prominent and outspoken against the "enemy" was columnist Walter Lippman, who said, "The civil rights of minority citizens could be set aside for national security." This feeling was particularly COLORADO COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE • JUNE 1999 strong in California where rumors of imminent invasion were constant. It was also where the majority of Japanese - Americans lived. There were 113,000 registered Japanese- Americans living on the West Coast out of a total of 127,000 registered Japanese- Americans living in the United States. In February of 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order #9066 authorizing the U.S. States Army to move all people of Japanese ances- try from the West Coast, inland to something called War Relocation Camps." These were essentially concen- tration camps. It was an act that many called unconstitu- tional — the forced removal of American citizens without due process. Colorado Governor Ralph Carr, much to his credit as well as to the apprehension of his political backers, let the U.S. Army know the Japanese- Americans would be welcome in Colorado. In 1942 the War Relocation Authority acquired 8,000 acres of land (the site would eventually grow to 12,000 acres) in eastern Colorado, not far from the Kansas.border, and just southeast of pres- ent -day Granada. The camp was named Amache, after the Indian wife of Colorado pioneer and wealthy rancher john Prowers, for whom the county that now'hosted the Amache