Colorado Leaders Visit Japanese Internment Camp On Somber Anniversary

GRANADA, Colo. (CBS4) – Several legislators representing Colorado traveled to Granada on Saturday to mark a day of remembrance. They joined Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland at the site where they got a tour. Eighty years ago on Feb. 19, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an order for the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

One of those internment camps, Camp Amache, was established in Granada. Now, what was initially called the "Grenada Relocation Center" but known by many as the Amache Camp is expected to be a national historic site.

It was another emotional day among many at the site for Derek Okubo. "Three generations of our family were in this camp," he said. Okubo is now executive director of The Agency for Human Rights and Community Partnerships with the City of Denver.

About 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes in the 1940s, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens. About 7,500 ended up at Amache.

Okubo knows how so much of the history of the camps has been ignored.

"My brother was called a liar by his teacher when he brought up the prison camps, and he came home and told my parents and they just went through the roof."

His parents, he believed, would be pleased that the camp is likely to soon become a national historic site.

"I remember my father talking about that their dream was that one day the National Park Service would help."

Okubo hopes to see the site get new attention.

"If we're really to grow as a country we have to face our demons and we have to be willing to feel things that we aren't willing to feel, and to think about things we don't want to think about."

Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper along with Congressmen Ken Buck and Joe Neguse are backing the bill. It was a bi-partisan measure sponsored by Buck and Neguse.

Their bill folds Camp Amache into the National Parks System, making it eligible for funding to help with a restoration that, until now, volunteers have done with donations.

Much of the work has been completed by students at Granada High School led by Dean of Students John Hopper. The bill passed the Senate last week and is headed back to the House where it already passed. With changes, it will have to be approved again, which is expected.

President Biden is also expected to approve it. Bennet was moved by the monument at the site to 31 Japanese Americans who joined up with the U.S. military and lost their lives in World War II.

"That's really the story of this place. It is the story of humanity's highest ideals on the one hand and our worst impulses on the other hand. And that's why I'm so grateful that we're getting this bill to the President's desk and this now will be part of the National Park Service."