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Light Shed on Dark Period of Colorado History

Rocky Mountain PBS

The National Park Service recently awarded a $29,060 grant to Colorado Preservation Inc. to help preserve a World War II Japanese American confinement site in southeastern Colorado.

Commonly referred to as Amache, empty fields and a few signs are all that remain of the former internment site near the town of Granada. The grant, which is part of a larger $1.4 million preservation effort, will fund signage and podcasting tools for a driving tour of the land.

“I think the podcast would be really, really valuable at the site because there isn’t really anybody there to help guide you on a tour of the site and there aren’t that many interpretative elements at the site,” says Kara Miyagishima who is with the National Park Service.

“That’s something that Colorado Preservation Inc. and Friends of Amache and the, Town of Granada Amache Preservation Society and others are working on helping increase the different types of interpretation at the site the podcast will just help increase peoples accessibility to the history of the site.”

http://youtu.be/HceYTiu4YAw

Video clip from the Rocky Mountain PBS documentary series Colorado Experience.

At its height during World War II Amache was home to as many as 7,600 Japanese Americans who were forced from their west coast homes as war time hysteria fueled an anti-Asian sentiment. The camp was closed in 1945.

A native of Stamford, VT, I call(ed) the Berkshires of western Massachusetts my home. The Berkshires are a culturally rich area -- I’m talking pass the butter and heavy cream -- rich.