Advocates For Colorado's Camp Amache Celebrate Designation As National Historic Site
DENVER (CBS4) -- After months of advocating, a bill to make Camp Amache in Granada, Colorado a National Historic Site was signed by President Joe Biden. One mile outside the town of Granada, there are just a few barracks and one guard tower still standing, a small mark of what Amache once was.
"You can stand in the doorway of the actually living quarters where your family was is a powerful experience," Kirsten Leong said.
Leong's great grandparents were among the more than 7,000 Japanese Americans who were detained there during World War II, something she only learned recently from old photos.
"It's part of the whole shame of being affiliated with it and having to be a prisoner there, many generations didn't talk about it," she said.
Today she is among the descendants and survivors fighting to ensure the site has a future.
Work, Granada High School teacher John Hopper and his students have been instrumental in.
"It's been 28 years, I have just had some real outstanding students over the years it didn't matter what we were doing how hot it was cutting branches and mowing grass, trimming trees, they never complained," Hopper said by phone Friday night.
Working with survivors and their descendants on what they envisioned the site could become they began collecting artifacts, started a museum and offer tours of the site.
Among the visitors Colorado lawmakers who later introduced a bill, now signed by President Joe Biden making Amache a national historic site.
"This is a huge significance for the Japanese Americans and their descendants because they now know it's going to be taken care of forever," Hopper said.
Both he and Leong say it is a day long overdue.
"This can never be forgotten; it was a mistake, and we learn from our mistakes," he said.
The president's signature on the Amache National Historical Site act, means the site is now part of the national park system and will be eligible for more resources to help continue its preservation.