Amache Monument

 As I wrote in a recent Facebook post,  "My grandmother was an illegitimate child left on a doorstep in Japan and raised Japanese. She came to this country just before the war, and saw many of her friends in San Francisco's Japantown forcibly relocated to Colorado." Today Sen. Michael Bennett made this announcement. 

Wonderful news from Washington this week: 

The Senate and the House of Representatives passed my bill to establish the Amache National Historic Site, a World War II-era Japanese American incarceration facility outside of Granada, Colorado, as part of the National Park System. On Monday, I spoke on the Senate floor and passed this legislation with the support of all 100 senators. 

The bill now heads to President Biden’s desk as a result of the tenacity and hard work of Amache survivors, descendants, the National Park Service, and community leaders. 

I’ve often said that American history is the story of a struggle between humanity’s highest ideals and our worst instincts. Amache serves as an important reminder of this contrast – our government locking up its own citizens on the one hand, and Japanese Americans holding onto hope that we can move past this dark chapter in our nation’s history on the other. 

This weekend, I joined Interior Secretary Deb Haaland for a roundtable discussion and a tour of Amache with survivors, descendants, community leaders, and the National Park Service to mark the 80th anniversary of the executive order that began the forced internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans. 

This moment is a testament to the resilience of Coloradans like John Hopper, a high school principal in Granada, and his students, who led the tour of Amache yesterday. John and his students have been taking care of this site for decades, collecting items from all over the world that former prisoners have sent back to ensure the next generation of Coloradans learn about what happened at Amache

I’m grateful to have worked with Senator John Hickenlooper, Congressman Joe Neguse, and Congressman Ken Buck  to make sure Amache will have the resources and recognition it deserves for years to come. Amache matters to Colorado, and I look forward to seeing the president sign this important legislation into law. 

[Graphic by Rafael Jesús González]

GRAND VALLEY ... My friend Jacob Richards of Grand Junction has been a fearlessly progressive voice in a very conservative region for decades.  His latest project is a Peoples History of Grand Junction. You can go to his Facebook group HERE ... I posted his latest installment detailing the role the Grand Valley played in receiving the Japanese-American detainees from the West Coast. Visit my Facebook wall HERE. 

TALKING GOURD ... For 30/40 years, before the Telluride Daily Planet killed my Up Bear Creek column I'd feature a poem at the end of my op-ed "three-dot journalism," as San Francisco legend Herb Caen used to call it.  I'm going to be doing that again occasionally with the Union of Mountain Poets. I'm looking for short poems, if any readers want to submit ... Kicking things off is my friend Hannah Helfer. 

[Graphic by MaryJoy Martin]

Western Civilization

Driving in the dark

Trying to get home

My eyes are heavy

The headlights are harsh

And I feel sad

that I can't see the moon

-Hannah Helfer