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Katelyn Rauen
Professor R. Masters
Hist 153
June 14, 2015
Japan Internment Camps: Amache, Colorado
December 7, 1941, a day that every American will talk about for decades to come, a day
our country changed, the day over three thousand men and women lost their lives. That day was
the day Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japanese fighter pilots. The United states along with other
countries were trying to stay isolated and out of the war until the Japanese decided to bomb
China and then bomb Pearl Harbor unexpectedly. After many Americans lost their lives
Roosevelt decided it was time to go to war and stop all this conflict. During the time of entering
the war our country was on high alert thinking that any Japanese person in our country was a spy
or going to bomb us and be a terrorist like the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbor. Because the
United States was scared as a nation the government relocated Japanese Americans to temporary
"assembly centers".
In the spring of 1942, just a few months after Pearl Harbor was bombed, the Executive
Order 9066 went out relocating all Japanese Americans from the west coast inward to different
states and camps where they could be monitored (amache.org). Japanese Americans had to leave
or sell their stores, homes, and land before relocating to camps. They were also told they could
only take as much as they could carry, everything was to be left behind or sold so they had some
money in the camps. At first many people were going willingly thinking it was helping the
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country out and that everything was going to be fine, but they then later realized that living
conditions were going to drop drastically.
Camp Granada also called "Amache" was located in south west Colorado was the tenth
largest Japanese internment in camp in the state (amache.org). The camp had roughly seven
thousand people at it at a time, sometimes reaching higher numbers and almost getting to eight
thousand (amache.org). The camp had only been under construction for two months when the
first 212 prisoners arrived in late August of 1942 (Yazawa). Most of the camp was not built
when people started to arrive but they just kept building as more people came in (Camp
Amache). The camp was hastily built, surrounded by barbed-wire and still was not finished being
built when the population sky rocketed. Many evacuees helped in the building of the camp but
for the first couple months many bathhouses went without water and were unsanitary, mess halls
could not feed the amount of people they had, and drinking water had to be brought in on trucks
from neighboring cities (Yazawa).
Within months of evacuees being brought to Amache a democratic self-government was
put in to play. The counsel was made up of one person from every 29 blocks of the camp, (there
were 348 barracks), from this counsel they made rules in regards to how people should act, the
punishment behind it, and have their own sort of jury for what they found were felony cases
(Camp Amache). Within a year of being at Amache a police force of sixty men, fire department
consisting of twenty four- thirty men, who were accompanied by volunteer fire fighters at times,
were in full swing. The camp also had a post office with dealt with 2,500 letters and over 400
packages daily, a 150 bed hospital, dental clinic, libraries, and more. Amache's farm was the
largest employer there, it was on 10,000 acres of land, within that space they grew alfalfa,
spinach, heads of lettuce, celery, lima beans, and more (Yazawa). Their farm was one of the
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more successful parts bringing in around $190,00 by January of 1943, some of their produce was
also shipped off to parts of Colorado outside of Amache.
In February of 1943 there was a questionnaire given to evacuees in Amache to quiz their
loyalty towards the United States. Two of the questions asked if they were willing to serve for
our country in armed forces, and are they willing to forswear any allegiance with the emperor of
Japan. From those two questioned it was decided if the evacuees were "loyal" or "disloyal".
From the answers they received a small group of "disloyals" went to Tule Lake in California and
a group of "loyals" took their place in Amache (Yazawa). The first group of loyals coming in
were trouble makers and soon made the community counsel their own.
Life in the Granada Relocation Camp was hard for many Japanese Americans but they
tried to make it work. While their living conditions were not the best to begin with they worked
hard to change things, build their own democracy, making rules, punishing the bad, and building
their own lives. They were able to establish a police department, fire department, a hospital,
library, post office, and more. Along with those accomplishments Amache also had a very
successful farm which brought in money for the compound. Even though times were hard during
those times many Japanese Americans tried to make the best of the unfair treatment and living
conditions.
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Work Cited
"Amache." Amache. Web. 15 June 2015.
This was not as helpful as the other articles but it did lead to interesting reads about the
Amache camp. It talked about their school system that they had set up also and their
community counsel.
"Amache.org." Amacheorg. Web. 15 June 2015.
This article was insightful about the background of the Granada Relocation Camp. I did
not know that Amache was named after an Indian chief's daughter, I thought that was a
very interesting piece of information.
"Camp Amache the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail." Camp Amache on the Santa Fe
Trail Scenic and Historic Byway Mountain Branch. Web. 15 June 2015.
I liked how unlike the articles this one had quotes from people that were actually at the
Amache camp. It made it more sensible rather than reading facts about it I also got to
read what people living there had to say about it.
Yazawa, Mel. "Encyclopedia of the Great Plains." Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Web. 15
June 2015.
This article was the most informational out of all the articles I read. It had good
information on how evacuees built their own democracy in the camps and how they had
their own little community set up inside of them. I did not know that the Amache camp
was the tenth largest in the state, judging by what I read about the size of the farm it had
there it must have been massive.