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Amache, Japanese-American Concentration Camp, Colorado, July 29, 1994 / A-9-10-9 (from the series Japanese-American Concentration Camps)
Amache, Japanese-American Concentration Camp, Colorado, July 29, 1994 / A-9-10-9 (from the series Japanese-American Concentration Camps)
Amache, Japanese-American Concentration Camp, Colorado, July 29, 1994 / A-9-10-9 (from the series Japanese-American Concentration Camps)

Amache, Japanese-American Concentration Camp, Colorado, July 29, 1994 / A-9-10-9 (from the series Japanese-American Concentration Camps)

Artist (American, 1945 - 2017)
DateJuly 29, 1994
Mediumchromogenic print
DimensionsImage: 10 1/4 × 12 3/4 in. (26 × 32.4 cm)
Support: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm)
Mat: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of Patrick Nagatani, 2017
Object number2017.12.52
DescriptionEntrance to a fenced cemetery, approximate 9 graves with some flowers on them, a windmill in center background, a patch of bare land in front of entry, blue sky with clouds.
Text Entries
Typically known for his photographic narratives and colorful constructed imagery, Patrick Nagatani shifts to a more documentary style in his series “Japanese-American Concentration Camps.” In the early 1990s, the artist traveled to and photographed the sites of ten inland camps created by the U.S. government during World War II to forcibly detain citizens of Japanese descent. Families across the nation were required to leave their homes, businesses, land, and property to live in these isolated camps under challenging conditions. Among them were Nagatani’s parents, who were both incarcerated as young adults, his mother at Manzanar and his father at Jerome; his maternal grandfather was separated from his family and held at the Justice Department Internment Camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Nagatani’s parents later met married in Chicago, Illinois and, like many prisoners of war, did not discuss their incarceration with their children. The artist and his siblings grew into adulthood knowing very little of their parents’ experiences. This photographic series was his way to explore and claim that family history.
The Granada War Relocation Center (also known as Camp Amache) was a Japanese American internment camp located in southeast Colorado, about a mile west of the small farming community of Granada, south of US 50. It was the only one of the ten Relocation Centers built on private land. It opened August 27, 1942, and reached a peak population of 7,318 persons by February 1943, making it the smallest of the camps (although the total number who passed through the camp during its three-year existence was over 10,000).The camp was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 18, 1994, and designated a National Historic Landmark on February 10, 2006.
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