“Amache,” “Reading Colorado” and other Denver book reviews of local interest this month

“Amache,” by Robert Harvey (Hawes & Jenkins)

Some 30 years ago, Douglas County teacher Robert Harvey wrote “Amache,” an extraordinary book about the World War II relocation camp near Granada.  At the time Harvey did his research, few Coloradans had heard of Amache or, indeed, knew anything about the federal government’s policy to incarcerate West Coast Japanese-Americans in prison camps.

“Amache” helped to inform them.  And thanks to interest in the book and the Colorado camp itself, the site was recently designated a national monument. It’s about time, then, that “Amache,” out of print for some years, is once again available.

On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which allowed the government to round up more than 100,000 West Coast Japanese and send them to holding pens, such as the Santa Anita race track.  Eventually, they were transported to relocation camps across the West and South, with 10,000 going to Amache, in southeast Colorado.

Harvey details the war hysteria and political pressure that led to the incarceration and the violation of thousands of Americans’ civil rights; most inmates were U.S. citizens, and many were born in this country.  What makes “Amache” so memorable, however, are the interviews with the people who were sent there.  It’s impressive that Harvey was able to get the Japanese to open up, since at that time, so many were still embarrassed by their incarceration and refused to talk about it.

The Amache evacuees tell about life in the camp, where they were consigned to shoddy barracks, an entire family occupying a single small room, ate in a mess hall and were paid $7 a month for their labor in the camp.  (Doctors made twice that.)  They talk about the kindness of their white neighbors as well as their prejudice.  In 1944, Amache stood in the way of a local high school football team completing a perfect season. The Amache team was a powerhouse and likely to beat the local boys. So days before the game, a handful of parents protested, saying that since America was at war with Japan, they shouldn’t have to host a team of Japanese boys in their stadium.  The game was canceled.

“Amache” is an American classic.  It ought to be required reading in Colorado schools.

“Reading Colorado,” by Peter Anderson (Bower House)

Colorado is a storied state. Drive any of its byways, and you wonder what happened there, who settled the land, what life was like in the towns, and why they flourished or died away.

In “Reading Colorado,” writer and poet Peter Anderson assembles a book of roadways and literature.  He follows the interstates and the secondary roads and includes literary excerpts about each one.  The writers range from George Bird Grinnell to Ken Kesey to John Williams.

Take Highway 40 from South Fork to Slumgullian Pass. There is an excerpt from writer Pam Houston along with the poem “Creede” by Cy Warman, with its famous last lines:

“It’s day all day in the day-time,

And there is no night in Creede.”

Along Interstate 70 from the Front Range to Loveland Pass, Anderson includes a piece from James Grafton Rogers’ poetic “My Rocky Mountain Valley” and (former Denver Post reporter) Mark Obmascik’s father-son climb up Gray’s Peak, from “Halfway to Heaven.”

Each excerpt is preceded by a description of the location as well as the source of the excerpt and something about the author.

Most readers know Mark Twain’s “Roughing It” and Thomas Hornsby Ferril’s “Here is a Land Where Life is Written in Water,” the poem displayed on the walls of the state capitol rotunda.  And there is an excerpt from Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” about Larimer, then a street of squalor.

Peterson includes some long-forgotten gems.  There is Lowell Thomas’s description of Victor ( Highway 24, west from Colorado Springs) and Dalton Trumbo’s idyllic view of his hometown in “Eclipse,” from his roman a clef of Grand Junction (Interstate 70 Parachute to Fruita.)

Other writers include Louis L’Amour, Wallace Stegner, Hunter Thompson, Kent Haruf, Upton Sinclair, Neil Cassady, James Michener, Ann Zwinger and on and on. “Reading Colorado” underscores the diversity and richness of the state and its writers.

“Twenty Miles of Fence,” by Bob West and Janet Fogg (Bison Books)

Bob West was a successful but dissatisfied Boulder architect when he and his family decided to buy the Devil’s Washtub Ranch in Wyoming. His only experience in cattle ranching was owning a couple of horses.

In “Twenty Miles of Fence,” West tells of how in 10 years, he turned from a greenhorn into an experienced rancher. His early missteps made cowhands smirk, but he eventually learned not just the mechanics of running a ranch but also what it means to be a real rancher.  That was underscored when he saw a cowboy nearly drown to save a calf. Still, West taught the cowboys a thing or two when he added a party deck to an old cabin.

Although his wealthy father-in-law backed the ranch, West writes of the disappointing profits of raising cattle.  He wonders how family operations can stay in business.  In the end, it wasn’t the lack of profits that did him in but something he never expected.

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