Americans got some good news last week. A bill to establish the Amache National Historic Site as part of the National Park System is headed to the president’s desk. With that, a shameful part of American history has been acknowledged and its victims recognized. Colorado’s congressional delegation can be thanked for that – most especially Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, Rep. Joe Neguse, all Democrats, and Republican Rep. Ken Buck.
Amache, in Buck’s district in Eastern Colorado, was the site of an internment camp where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II – solely because of their ancestry. That episode constitutes a national embarrassment.
There were 10 such camps, mostly in the West. The intent was to get Japanese Americans, many of whom were in California, away from the coast. The thinking, which was based on racism pure and simple, was that if the Japanese Empire attacked the United States directly, Japanese Americans could not be trusted not to side with the enemy.
Of course, the U.S. was also at war with Italy and Germany – and Nazi Germany was far and away the biggest threat – but there were no camps set up for Italian Americans or those of German descent. But of course, Germans and Italians are white people.
So, for the crime of having a non-European name and an epicanthic fold, thousands of Americans were rounded up and imprisoned. While nothing like the horrific conditions imposed by the Nazis, these were concentration camps and should be recognized as such.
All told, as many as 120,000 Japanese Americans were held in those camps. At its peak, Amache held almost 10,000. Those people were imprisoned without trial, without having even been accused of a crime and without anything approaching due process.
It was all done by way of an executive order issued by that great liberal icon, President Franklin Roosevelt. To be fair, it was done in a state of absolute panic in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But it was done, and it was wrong. It was an abrogation of almost everything we take pride in as Americans. That executive order – issued 80 years ago Feb. 19 – did not reflect the rule of law, the Bill of Rights or any part of the Constitution. It was racism and hysteria.
In contrast, the effort to begin to make amends was unified and bipartisan. A bill to add Amache to the National Park System was first introduced in the House by Neguse, with Buck as the initial co-sponsor. Colorado Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette, Jason Crow and Ed Perlmutter subsequently signed on as co-sponsors. Bennet carried the bill in the Senate, backed by Hickenlooper. Bennet also secured Senate passage by negotiating with the lone holdout, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.
In the end, the House passed the bill 416-2 and the Senate approved it by unanimous consent. Colorado’s entire congressional delegation – Republican and Democrats, representatives and senators – voted for it. And in doing so, they did us proud.
