Reflections about our current immigration debate after a new visit to the “prison on the plains” for Japanese-Americans during World War II.
by Allen Best
Looking back, it’s so easy to see the wrongness of Amache, the place of sagebrush and cactus amid southeastern Colorado’s sandy soils. During World War II, it was briefly the state’s 10th largest population center.
Except, of course, Amache was no city as we normally think of them. It was surrounded by barbed wire fences. Guards in towers wielded both guns and search lights. “Concentration camp” fits if defined as “a place where people are imprisoned not because of any crimes they have committed, but simply because of who they are.”
In the case of Amache, Japanese-Americans were rounded up in California and other West Coast states and put on trains to Colorado. More than two-thirds were American citizens. The action was justified under an executive order issued by President Franklin Roosevelt soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“Successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage” to the national defense materials, premises, and utilities, said the order. Amache was quickly and shoddily created. In 1943 it housed more than 7,300 people.
The story is told well in a 2024 book, “Amache,” by Robert Harvey. His parting words haunt: “If citizens of the United States had looked less to political cheerleaders and professional patriots, and more to the constitutional democracy they were fighting to save, evacuation might never have happened.”
On the July 4th weekend, I visited Amache once again, my third or fourth trip there. American flags fluttered along county roads in the hot winds as semi-trucks hauled harvested wheat to grain elevators. Cattle huddled along fences, their tails swishing at flies, as temperatures marched north of 90 degrees.
Amache became a national historic site in 2024. The National Park Service calls it a “prison on the plains.” The federal government then had used a sugar-coated word: the Granada Relocation Center. The closest town was Granada. People got out of prison, but just on passes.
Little other than some concrete foundations remain of the 560 buildings that were once crammed into a one-square-mile area at Amache. Lacking water from the Arkansas River, the hillside lacked the lushness seen in summer-time vegetation at the entrance along Highway 50. Photos/Allen Best
All the 560 buildings cramped together amid the one-square-mile enclosure have been torn down or moved elsewhere. Only a few concrete foundations remain. A warning sign cautions that rattlesnakes might be amid piles of rocks. Now, a new building recreates the barracks where entire families lived and shared single light bulbs. Their spaces, about 500 square feet, were only a little larger than average hotel rooms of today.
Some of those relocated to Amache had been farmers in California. In their parched quarters in Colorado, they applied their skills. One explanatory panel tells how they took tea bags, egg shells, and vegetable scraps to try to create tiny nutritious plots to grow food.
Milton Eisenhower’s words linger. The brother of the future president, Eisenhower headed the War Relocation Authority shortly after it was formed but favored more respectful treatment of Japanese-Americans. In this, he was strongly opposed by governors of most Western states. Ralph Carr, Colorado’s governor, was an exception.
“I have brooded about this whole episode on and off the past three decades for it is illustrative of how an entire society can somehow plunge off-course,” said Eisenhower in 1974.
Two replica buildings have been constructed at Amache in recent years to illustrate the living conditions there from during World War II. Photo/Allen Best
Has our entire society today plunged off-course in our actions regarding immigration? Surely, somebody reading this will say: “But the immigration of today is different. We have LAW-BREAKERS crossing our southern border. OUR immigrant forebearers arrived here legally.”
I grant that critical distinction, but I also see overlap. Today, as in 1942, it is common to demonize whole groups of people. Our president has done this time and again, painting otherwise law-abiding immigrants as criminals capable of the worst crimes. In fact, as statistics from Texas and Georgia show, as a group they are, other than crossing borders to seek better lives, uncommonly law-abiding.
Do we need observance of our laws? Yes, although personally I am far more threatened by people driving 20 and 30 mph over the posted speed limits on our highways. Will a political candidate campaign about restoring law and order to our highways? I doubt it. Easier to provoke fear of “they” and “them.”
Immigration is a difficult, nuanced topic. Instead, we settle for bold and often thoughtless actions. We have granted immigration police great freedom — including, apparently, the ability to violate constitutional rights. The budget reconciliation bill appropriates $45 billion for detention centers. The president wants one in every state.
As in the case of the Japanese-Americans during World War II, we have policies that don’t match the threat or the problem.
We can do better today with our immigration policies. We can do better.
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Very good article! Tying mistakes of yesterday to today’s events is how we learn from history.
Ralph Carr worked on the Victor Record in Victor CO. I can’t remember if he crossed paths with Lowell Thomas who also worked on that same paper. During the Labor Wars in 1904 (?) the Record was instrumental in getting news out even though the whole staff had been arrested because they favored the striking miners. Real hero’s!
Interesting! I had no idea that Carr had a newspaper background. Guess I need to read Adam Schrager’s book.
Re: immigration…the Republicans have been railing about our lack of new and improved immigration laws for years. Last winter Trump shot down a bipartisan bill that would have gone some ways to helping solve the issues because he wanted to use immigration as a political issue to run on. So now the entire government is his to seemingly do whatever he wants with and he owns the legislative and judicial branches too. So, is there immigration reform in the works, or will they just continue to do nothing forevermore?
Allen, thanks for this post. I have a friend and former colleague who was born in Amache. My wife and I finally arranged to visit there several years ago, just about the time of the National Historical Site declaration. Even the new buildings you mention had not yet appeared, but the explanatory panels demonstrated the resourcefulness of the detainees. The camp–not in an ideal growing zone–produced enough food for themselves and for other camps.
Recent articles have cited the anomaly of such sites now directed not to indicate anything negative about our history. A move by the administration to reverse the Amache designation would not surprise me.
Finally, a discouraging footnote of the Amache story is that the Supreme Court at the time unanimously upheld the constitutionality of FDR’s executive order.
Very interesting, Dick. I had not realized that about the Supreme Court. Thank you for sharing your insights and experiences. You say it very well: “not an ideal growing zone.”