After decades of Hopper and his students volunteering their own time and resources, the site’s new national park status means it will now have “professional help and long-term maintenance and interpretation,” Hopper tells Condé Nast Traveler. He hopes the designation will also lead to additional buildings and visitor resources at the site, including the restoration of more elements of the former camp.
Beyond the new NPS employee presence, the visitor experience will largely remain the same, according to Hopper—however, the Amache Museum that Hopper’s students run will remain in the hands of the Amache Preservation Society just down the road.
Amache was just one of ten sites where Japanese Americans were forced to live after President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 after the Pearl Harbor bombing, ripping 120,000 people away from their homes and lives. Most internees were American citizens, including actor George Takei.
.mp4)
From California’s craft sake makers to Koreatowns across the country, we’re honoring Asian diasporas creating vibrant communities by weaving their heritages with their American hometowns.
Six other sites managed by the National Park Service preserve this history, including Manzanar Historic Site in Independence, California, and Minidoka National Historic Site in Jerome, Idaho.
The preservation of these sites is needed now more than ever due as those who were forced to live there get older, risking the disappearance of their valuable living history. In a 2022 interview, Minoru Tonai, who lived at Amache from ages 13 to 16, said he felt “a bit of anger of having been sent to this prison when I was an American citizen and had not done any crime,” and believed the landmark designation served as a “reminder to the American public that this could happen if we don’t try to uphold all the rights of the citizens and aliens living in the United States.”
Tonai has since passed, but his daughter Teresa says her dad would have been “so happy” that Amache has become a national park, as “it shows how much the town has invested in this part of our history that’s not being forgotten.”
She also hopes it means more travelers from across the country will visit, to learn about the tremendous spirit that people like her father were able to maintain during inhumane treatment by the US government. “They maintained their lives through work and sports, and even Boy Scouts, dances, and gardens,” she says, despite “knowing each day they were surrounded by barbed wires and guards with rifles.”
With the historical location representing such a large piece of her own family history, Teresa has visited the site with her father multiple times over the years. “I want the people of Amache to be remembered and for their stories to be heard and read so this injustice cannot happen again,” she says.
Those deeply personal ties with American families is what Amache’s new designation aims to honor. “Amache’s addition to the National Park System is a reminder that a complete account of the nation’s history must include our dark chapters of injustice,” NPS director Chuck Sams said in a statement. “To heal and grow as a nation we need to reflect on past mistakes, make amends, and strive to form a more perfect union.”
