Over the last 20 years films such as “Conscience and the Constitution” and “Rabbit in the Moon,” and books like Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II” have raised awareness of organized resistance to the draft imposed upon young men imprisoned at the Heart Mountain concentration camp.  But what about resistance at other camps?

“Resistance at Amache and the Road to Recognition was a panel discussion held at the Tadaima 2021 virtual community pilgrimage.  This panel examined the resistance at the Granada concentration camp (also known as “Amache”) in Colorado.  The local and national Japanese American Citizens Leagues ostracized the resisters during the war.  Later, stories and research about the Amache resistance led to the JACL’s recognition of the resisters.  Although initially the JACL omitted the resisters’ stories from the chronicles of Japanese American history, the resisters today are hailed as civil rights heroes.  

The resisters refused to be drafted from behind barbed wire while they and their families were imprisoned without due process.  The Heat Mountain Fair Play Committee was the most well known draft resistance organization for some time.  Now we know that at the same time, three dozen men at the Amache concentration camp made individual decisions to resist the draft.  The Amache resisters were sentenced to a federal labor camp in the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Arizona.  Fellow draft resister and civil rights icon Gordon Hirabayashi was also incarcerated in this labor camp.  The Amache resisters reunited at the Tucson prison site in 1999 at the groundbreaking of the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site.  The Site serves as a lasting reminder of the need to protect civil liberties, especially in times of crisis.

This panel included two men whose own activism was influenced by their fathers’ resistance at the Amache camp:

• Dan Kubo is the son of Amache resister Yosh Kubo. Dan has been active in Asian American studies and helped to establish the Yu-Ai Kai Japanese American Community Senior Services.

• Kenji G. Taguma is the son of Amache resister Noboru Taguma. Kenji helped organize exhibits on the resisters.  Kenji also started two dozen programs centered around Asian American studies and social justice on the California State University Sacramento campus.  He also published an Asian American newspaper, and is the editor of the Nichi Bei Times and its successor Nichi Bei Weekly.

• They will be joined by Andy Noguchi, the co-president of the Florin JACL in Sacramento.  Andy led the formal recognition of the local resisters at the Florin JACL’s Time of Remembrance in 1994.  Andy went on to lead the movement for the National JACL’s Resisters Reconciliation Resolution at the 2000 Monterey Convention. This Resolution culminated with the National JACL Resisters Reconciliation Ceremony in 2002.

• Special guest Susumu Yenokida is the last surviving Nisei draft resister from the Granada (Amache) concentration camp.

The discussion uncovered the lasting impact of the Amache resisters, and the lessons for today.