The Chariot of Desire: Part II
October 19, 2017
Traveling west from Pueblo through southeastern Colorado with a coffee in one hand and the steering wheel in the other, I head across the plains towards the mountains. After I realize I’ve been driving in the wrong direction for a half hour, I turn around.
Traveling east through southeastern Colorado, the mountains turn to hills turn to ripples. I’m on US 50 instead of the Interstate–a deliberate choice on my part. The curvy road takes me through small outpost settlements that must have had a purpose at some point. People still live there, but it’s hard to say why. A railway runs through a lot of these towns, if only, I’m forced to presume, to deliver barnstorming baseball teams and pick up whatever meager harvest the hapless locals produce. The Arkansas River runs parallel to the rail for long stretches, but you won’t see any steamboats or cargo ships chugging through–being so close to its rocky origin, the river’s good for irrigation, fly fishing, and, I presume, quality freshwater for illicit moonshine production.
I’m unabashed about my ignorance of this region of the world. No one ever sung its praises to me over sips and nips of wine and tapas: “You simply must visit Granada in Prowers County if you’re ever in the area. It is quintessentially Colorado, a true tour-de-force. Try the post office or the high school.” It is ignorance that drives me as much as my sweet Chariot. Ignorance is the wind blowing in my sail, taking me to the places my compass of comfort wouldn’t dare point to. This can be a perilous method of navigation. This is how you forget your direction, misplace your bearings, and surrender your good senses. This is how you get lost.
This is how I found the Amache Japanese-American Relocation Center. Or rather, the place where it used to be. People once lived there, but it’s hard to say why. Over 10,000 people were sent here at some point, making it the tenth-largest city in Colorado in the 1940s–magnitudes larger than nearby Granada, where hundreds of people still willfully reside.
Amache today is a grid of dirt roads with signs denoting the previous locations of makeshift buildings. A hospital. A fire department. A co-op. A post office. A high school. The sign marking the high school cites the cost of construction ($301,000) as a cause of “national controversy.” Later I found deeper context from the Densho Encyclopedia:
Still reeling from the Dust Bowl, the region had seen very little new construction for decades other than federally-supported projects. Local residents resented the expense of building a school specifically for Japanese American students. … The fray was taken to the state and national level when Colorado Senator Edwin Johnson identified the construction as one of the ways the WRA [War Relocation Authority] was “pampering” the enemy. Although the high school was completed, the plans for an elementary and middle school were abandoned on orders from the national office of the WRA.
The WRA required new Amache arrivals to fill out Selective Service Form 304A, entitled “Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry.” The questionnaire set out to determine the respondent’s national loyalty, the desired loyalty being an American one. Answering incorrectly or inadequately on the form posed serious consequences: relocation to “segregation” centers for the allegedly disloyal; revocation of American citizenship or resident national status; prosecution for espionage; deportation.
Versions of one question asked if the respondent would renounce their Japanese citizenship and allegiance to the Emperor of Japan–a problematic question on multiple points. Due to their legal categorization as racially non-white, Japanese immigrants were barred from American citizenship, so renouncing their Japanese citizenship would make them citizens of nowhere. Furthermore, United States citizens born in the U.S. of Japanese heritage had likely never even set foot in Japan, let alone pledged allegiance to its head of state. In spite of the questionnaire’s impossible logic riddles, Japanese Americans faced punitive action if they refused to complete the form. You had to be loyal or disloyal, no shades of gray. Either you’re with us, or you’re against us.
Another question asked men who were natural-born citizens if they preferred the United States so much that they might even serve in its military. 953 men from Amache checked the box and were sent abroad to fight for the United States. 31 of those men died in service of the country that vetted their loyalty. 106 more Amache inmates died while detained in Colorado. A cemetery, including a newer war memorial, is one of the few remaining original features.
Three structures were rebuilt at Amache on the south end of the site: full scale replicas of a barrack, a guard tower, and the camp’s water tower. Looking southward from those structures, you’ll see a great lonely endless nothing. The sign outside the replica barrack details the bare accommodations inside: single rooms for entire families, with stone floors and no insulation to protect from harsh summer heat or the bitter, unobstructed winds of winter. The winds doesn’t always take folks; sometimes it keeps them.
Camp Amache was named after Amache Prowers, a 19th-century Cheyenne woman who married John Prowers–a white cattle rancher whose surname now graces his home county. Amache was the daughter of Ochinee, a Cheyenne chief killed in an 1864 military massacre of a Cheyenne-Arapaho village not far from the eventual site of Camp Amache. Witnesses of the massacre described ruthless atrocities against mostly women and children, prompting a government committee to accuse the perpetrators of “murder and barbarity.” Despite the committee’s findings, those responsible never faced charges.
The winds of ignorance whisk me into Kansas, away from colorful Colorado. By the time I cross the border, it’s mostly dark. I’m forced to presume not much of note can be found around me.