Amache Remembered - Fuchigami, Robert Y

. .

Résumé :
During World War II, over one hundred thousand American citizens were corralled behind barbed wire with watch towers, search beacons and armed guards, simply because they had Japanese faces and names. These people have earned a place in history; they have earned the right to have their story told. No myth or legend this: Amache's pain and suffering were real and true. No charges filed. No hearings held. Eight camps were erected in desolate, desert type lands in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Two other camps were located in swamp type lands in Arkansas. The camp in Colorado, holding over 7,500 inmates, was officially named Granada Relocation Center but unofficially called Amache. The Amache story needs remembrance or it can be repeated with other Americans. This is the story of Amache.

Biographie:
Born in 1930 at Marysville, California. In May 1942, his family of ten: father, mother and eight children, were evicted from their 20 acre fruit and vegetable farm in Yuba City, California, by the U.S. Army and sent by train to Merced (California) Detention Center (assembly center). In September 1942 they were moved again by train to the Amache Concentration Camp (Granada Relocation Center). They were incarcerated behind barbed wire fences for three years, during which time they lost their farm - home, truck, equipment, etc. With nothing to return to in California, the family moved to Greeley, Colorado, when released from Amache in September 1945. Robert completed high school, enrolled in college an completed two years before joining the U.S. Navy, when the Korean War began in 1950. After four years, he resumed his college education and completed a B.A. and M.A. at San Jose State University. He taught in elementary and secondary schools in San Jose and Hayward, California, before receiving a federal grant in 1960 to pursue a doctorate at the University of Illinois, Institute for Research on Exceptional Children. He was awarded the degree in 1964. He taught summer session at Sacramento 131 State University in 1962. He was a State Consultant with the Illinois State Department of Education (1963). He began a teacher training program in Special Education at the University of Hawaii in 1964. He left Hawaii in 1966 to serve as the Field Coordinator of the Northwest Regional Instructional Materials Center, based at the University of Oregon. In 1968, he moved to Sonoma State University in California to start a teacher training program in Special Education. During the summer, he taught special education at the University of Wyoming (1971 and 1973), and at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater (1972). He served as the Chairman of the Education Department and later Dean of Graduate Studies at Sonoma State University. He took one year leave of absence to work for the National Council of Exceptional Children in Reston, Virginia (1977), and as State Director of Special Education for California (1985). He retired in 1992.