Introduction to Amache:
What is Amache? That is probably the most common question asked during our presentations, and depending on the speaker, the hardest question to answer. To put it simply, Amache was an internment camp, created because the United States government was worried that the Japanese-Americans might be committing espionage on the west coast.
To truly understand most of the concepts in our presentation, you first must understand a few basic terms. The first term, Isei, refers to the first Japanese immigrants to the United States. Under the Anti-immigration Act of 1923, they were denied citizenship. The second term, Nisei, refers to the children of the immigrants, who were native born American citizens. Sonsei refers to the Japanese-Americans who were heavily involved in the Redress Movement of the 1980s. CO stands for Commanding Officer and was the title that Japanese-Americans were denied the right to obtain in the military. M.P. stands for Military Police, who kept the internees under guard at the camp.
The final term, No-No Boys, is one of the hardest concepts for our viewers to understand during presentations. When the Japanese-Americans first arrived at Amache they were given a survey. The survey asked a variety of very personal questions, from the magazines and periodicals to which the internees subscribed to their political affiliations. The two most important questions determined not their fate, but the fate of the children. The first, was if you were drafted into the United States military, would you serve. The second asked if he internees would be willing to deny all citizenship and loyalty to the Japanese government. This was a problem for the Isei, since they were denied citizenship by the American government. In the graduating classes of Amache, the students whose parents had answered NO to either of these two questions were not permitted to graduate. Instead, the M.P.'s held them under guard in a train car graduation night. Some were later shipped off to Tule Lake and deported.
On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. That same night, over 2,000 Japanese-Americans were detained by the police and FBI for questioning. Many were held in custody until their internment. There were over 20,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast at this time. On February 18, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which stated that all Japanese-Americans living on the west coast had to be relocated to the inland United States. Once these notices went up on telephone poles and street corners, the Japanese-Americans had three days to report to their internment centers before they would be forced to leave. Many immediately had evacuation sales and kept the money with them throughout the camp. Once they reported to their interment centers, they were loaded onto train cars and shipped to the camps. Most of the internees at Amache came from the San Anita Horse Racetrack. The train ride to Amache took three days and the M.P.'s kept the internees from looking out the windows. Once they arrived at Granada, CO, they were unloaded. Only the very first internees were actually bused to the camp. The rest had to walk the 1.7 miles to the center.
Life in Granada:
