December 2011, Daily News

Archaeologists Return to World War II Japanese American Internment Camp

Sat, Jan 14, 2012

During World War II, this camp was considered the 10th largest city in Colorado. Today, the camp has a resident population of 0, a lonely, desolate place covered by scrubby vegetation and small cacti. Most of the buildings have been removed -- except one -- a pumphouse beside a water tank, still used. Now, besides the lone building, one sees only old cement foundations of the former buildings. Visitor signs have been posted to show the former locations of schools, clinics, dining halls, laundries, a fire station, and other buildings. 

Officially named the Granada War Relocation Center, or, informally, Camp Amache (named after a Cheyenne Indian chief's daughter), it was home to as many as 7,318 Japanese Americans who were unwillingly removed from their homes along the west coast of the United States during the height of World War II. The camp was one of ten that were created for national security reasons by the Roosevelt Administration following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Each person was only allowed to bring one bag before leaving, forcing many to sell or give away possessions, including pets. The camp itself was spread across a low hill and was surrounded by barbed-wire fencing with eight machine-gun towers.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

First evacuee arrivals at Granada; photographer Tom Parker. Japanese evacuees stand or sit with their suitcases and belongings in front of a Santa Fe and Topeka passenger train car. The men and women wait for the bus ride to Camp Amache, Granada Relocation Center, southeastern Colorado, on August 30, 1942. War Relocation Authority photo. Image and text source:s National Archives and Wikimedia Commons

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Granada Relocation Center, Amache, Colorado. The trees were planted by the evacuees to provide shade on the sandy, sun baked soil on which the center was erected. Temperatures of 120 and higher are not uncommon. A total of nearly 15,000 evacuees were inducted into the Granada Project, Amache, Colorado, since August 27, 1942, when the first group arrived from the Merced Assembly Center to prepare the camp for those to follow. From September 1, 1945, to the closing date of October 15, 3,105 persons went back to their former homes or relocated elsewhere. At the peak of its population, Amache had 7,567 residents. 412 births were recorded and 107 deaths during the three years of its existence. Image and text sources: National Archives and Wikimedia Commons.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

But this camp was a far cry from the notorious Nazi concentration camps known from WWII history. The eight towers were rarely all manned at the same time, and these guns were never used. Camp residents could live at least a semblance of normal lives, operating schools, clinics, community events and activities. Not a single person starved. The camp even had a police department consisting of Japanese Americans living at the camp. The Governor of Colorado welcomed the Japanese to Colorado, contrary to the common anti-Japanese sentiments that dominated those times in the United States. And there are no mass graves with nameless victims. In one corner of the area of the camp there is a small cemetery and memorial dedicated to the Japanese Americans of Amache who volunteered to fight in Europe during World War II. Some members of the camp were in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a decorated unit of American military history. The men's names are engraved on a memorial in memory of the members of the 442nd who died while fighting. 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Amache Summer Carnival Parade.  Notice the "Liberty Bell" in the photo. Image and text sources: National Archives and Wikimedia Commons

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nonetheless, captivity cannot be regarded as a naturally desirable human condition. And there is more to the story of Amache than what can be found in photos and written documents. That is the job of archaeology. Since 2005, the University of Denver's Department of Anthropology has been conducting a long-term community-based archaeology and heritage project at Amache, focusing on both the site itself and work at the Amache museum in Granada, Colorado. On June 18, 2012, archaeologists from the University of Denver will return again to the site to investigate what remains, both above and below the surface. Along with them will be a team of students and volunteers. They will conduct surface surveys, examine any sub-surface indicators through ground penetrating radar, excavate, perform laboratory processing and analysis of the finds, do collections management tasks, and work with the historic and archival material culture. It will all be performed in close collaboration with the community members. For example, since 1990, the Amache Preservation Society, a Granada high school group, has worked to help preserve the site and its associated documents. Indeed, as a school project, Granada Undivided High School students have successfully established a museum for the camp.

Among other things, the project presents an interesting case of how a people and their culture can remain inextricably tied and maintained, even under radically altered, controlled, or restricted conditions. Humans can be a resourceful and adaptable lot. Says Dr. Bonnie Clark, Project Director, of life within the camp as testified by the material remains thus far uncovered, " "One of the few things (they) had control of was this part of the landscape." [1] For the interned Japanese Americans, this meant gardens -- typical Japanese entryway gardens, communal gardens, and vegetable gardens. Excavations have revealed water pipes reused as planters, a piece of copper wire used to train a Chinese elm, and eggshell within the soil, used by the internees to enrich the otherwise hostile arid soil of the desert environment. The findings support what has been learned from the investigation of other WW II Japanese American internment camps throughout the U.S.  "....What we see from each internment camp that has been subject to archaeological investigation is evidence of a wide range of practices that follow Japanese tradition, including building koi ponds, making mochi (cakes of pounded rice), and growing tea." [2]  

The University of Denver's field work at the site, which involves a field school for interested students and volunteers, is expected to run for a 4-week period, from June 18 to July 17, 2012. Individuals interested in being a part of the ongoing investigations and field school may learn more by visiting the website at http://portfolio.du.edu/amache. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Last of the residents of the Amache Relocation Center waiting to board the train which will carry them from Granada to their former homes on the west coast. Many of the evacuees during the past three years were able to resettle and find new homes in the Middle West and eastern states. The last to leave the center, a group of 126, left on two special coaches for Sacramento and nearby towns. 412 births were recorded and 107 deaths during the three years of its existence. Image and text sources: National Archives and Wikimedia Commons

_______________________________________________

[1] http://www.archaeology.org/1105/features/world_war_II_internment.html

[2] Skiles, Stephanie A. and Clark, Bonnie J., When the Foreign is not Exotic: Ceramics at Colorado's WWII Japanese Internment Camp. pg. 181; from C.D. Dillian and C.L. White (eds.), Trade and Exchange: Archaeological Studies from History and Prehistory, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-1072-1_11.