The decades-long effort to ensure lasting recognition of Colorado’s Granada War Relocation Center — also known as Camp Amache — finally reached the finish line Friday as President Joe Biden signed legislation making it a national historic site. In a White House ceremony, the president’s signature gave final approval to the bill that will place […]
Granada
Posted inOpinion
Littwin: Camp Amache, the oft-forgotten World War II internment camp, is now officially remembered
Sometimes, even as a cynical columnist, you find yourself moved to write about something truly good, something extraordinary, something — OK, I don’t want to get carried away here, because this story also has the expected opposition, setbacks and struggle — that shines a light on the fact that, contrary to what you might hear […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Utah’s U.S. Sen. Mike Lee blocks Colorado internment camp designation, draws ire
By James Anderson and Sam Metz, The Associated Press On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the forced internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans at the onset of World War II, Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah is getting backlash for holding up the creation of a national historic site at a former internment […]
Posted inColoradans, News
In the wake of anti-Asian violence, Colorado congressmen push Amache’s designation as National Historic Site
The recently stalled push to bring the Amache incarceration camp into the National Park system got an energy boost Wednesday through a bipartisan bill to designate the square-mile on Colorado’s southeastern plains, where more than 7,000 Japanese Americans were held during World War II, a National Historic Site. The bill, sponsored by U.S. Reps. Joe […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, News, Politics and Government
Push to get Colorado’s Amache internment camp a national park designation interrupted by coronavirus
At first, the trip unfolded as just an academic tracing of family history. John Tonai had for years heard the stories from his father, Minoru, about the Amache internment camp in southeastern Colorado, where the U.S. government transported thousands of Japanese Americans from California and held them behind barbed wire and guard posts for three […]
Posted inColoradans, News, Water
Opponents refuse to play on Branson’s hardscrabble football field. Now the town needs a(nother) miracle.
The athletic field at the far northeast corner of Branson’s town limits had sat mostly idle since the 1980s, when it was last used for baseball and still held memories as home to a 1967 high school championship team. Without baseball, any pretense to athletic glory literally turned to dust as the field blended with […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
“Our” beloved Colorado: Race, privilege, and landscape in the state’s history
As we look forward to Colorado Day on Aug. 1, History Colorado asked each member of its State Historian’s Council to reflect on what “our beloved Colorado” means to them. Here, Jared Orsi reflects on who we mean — and who we exclude — when we say “our.” One-hundred-twenty-seven years ago last week, Katharine Lee […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
The story of a dismal chapter in U.S. history didn’t end with internment camps
Denny Dressman is a former award-winning reporter, editor and senior executive who concluded a 42-year newspaper career in 2007 when he retired from The Rocky Mountain News after 25 years there. A member of the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame and a past president of both the Colorado Press Association and the Colorado Authors’ […]