"This exclusion of "all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien," from the Pacific Coast area on a plea of military necessity in the absence of martial law ought not to be approved. Such exclusion goes over "the very brink of constitutional power," and falls into the ugly abyss of racism."
Justice Frank Murphy, dissenting, Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)
Turning onto County Road 24.5 from Highway 50 in the remote Southeastern Colorado town of Granada, one enters the information area of the Amache National Historic Site. It was formerly called, by the US Government that created and built it, the Granada War Relocation Center. Its residents called it Camp Amache.
There are informational plaques and displays, and a short walking tour. For the dogs, a chance to stretch their legs and have some water. For us, an on-the-ground introduction to the business end of what fear, the force of law (with the threat of actual force) tinged with inescapable overtones of racism once led our country to think - erroneously, and not just in hindsight - was necessary, and just.
The audio guide for the driving exploration, available for free download, is chilling in that former detainees - prisoners - tell the stories of their lives at the camp. Listening to the voices, slowly maneuvering along the dirt paths among the dozens of foundations now overgrown with gnarled trees, eastern plains scrub... Here, rows of living quarters once stood, of five families to each flimsy building. There, the high school; its construction caused howls of outrage at how the pampered detainees were being coddled. A store.
A cemetery. Over a hundred people passed away while the camp existed.
We pass a guard tower, the only one left of the five that once stood around the camp's perimeter. They are small, cramped, appearing flimsy and treacherous even when new. Fencing follows the path of the barbed wire that once hemmed the residents in. Our downloaded guide tells the story of children at play breaching the fencing, rounded up by soldiers and herded back into the compound.
At each stop, another tale. How the residents tried to make the best of their circumstances, maintain something of a normal life. How they contributed to the war effort - war bond and recruiting posters conceived and printed in the workshops; food grown in difficult conditions not just feeding the camp but the surrounding community; of men who volunteered to serve a country that imprisoned them, some making the ultimate sacrifice. One of these men was awarded a Medal of Honor.
"There are no great men," Admiral William Halsey is famous for saying. "There are only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet." Ordinary men, and women, faced with the challenges of global aggression and barbarism, met them in a largely successful way. Standing at what was the front gate of Camp Amache on a beautiful June day in 2023 it is hard to be judgmental, but easy to draw a lesson.
So much of what we call the United States is built on trust. We trust our elected officials to follow the rules to which we as citizens have given our consent. We trust that our institutions will accomplish their tasks within the law (and be competent doing them). We trust that our media will report facts as fact, opinions as opinion, and be honest in their assessments. We trust the process that preserves the right of every American to vote, so that our collective wishes are honored whenever we head to the polls.
No human endeavor is perfect. Some elected officials are corrupt, both personally and in how they conduct their governmental affairs. There are institutions that bend to the will of the powerful, in service of the few. It is often difficult to distinguish fact from fiction (let alone from opinion) when major news organizations decide to sway the public in the direction chosen by our "betters."
Human imperfections seem especially evident when facing something announced as an existential threat. Americans in late 1941 and early 1942 believed - in some cases due more to fiction than fact - that the invasion of the West Coast was imminent. In February 1942 a Japanese submarine surfaced off of the coast near Santa Barbara, CA and lobbed between 15-25 poorly-aimed shells at an oil tank farm. They mostly missed their intended targets (the employees there called the cops on them). The reaction of America's "thought leaders?" Apoplexy.
Fiction also played a role in framing American's point of view in those years. The popular 1943 film Air Force followed the fictitious crew of a fictitious B-17 bomber as it lands in Hawaii during the attack on December 7, 1941. After the crew is told of several instances of Japanese residents conducting "fifth column" (clandestine and subversive) acts of sabotage and taking American forces under small arms fire, the aircraft is ordered to Wake Island to preserve it from attack.
None of that happened. There were no instances of "fifth column" activities. None.
We looked at the vista, of the physical remnants of Americans imprisoning other Americans not because of individual unlawful acts, but because of what can only be described as racism. Americans in 1942 were wrong to do this - to build this place, to force their fellow citizens from their homes and fence them in. Everything that was supposed to prevent such a shameful decision failed - betrayed the trust of not just our country, but the trust of the people who were compelled to submit to this outrage.
Mark Twain is purported to have said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." We should remember that every time a pundit, a politician or a supposed leader utters the words existential threat and proposes something shameful. Our country has succumbed to temptation too many times. The place we visited, or one like it, Americans should experience for themselves, and remember, the next time we are invited to take unreasonable counsel of our fears and prejudices.
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