Most books about Japanese Americans focus on the West Coast because that's where Japanese first arrived and settled on the US mainland. So few well-known books tell the stories of Japanese as they crossed the country and decided to live in the mountains, or the midwest, or the northeast or the south. Yet I know of communities of JAs in New...
Ralph Carr, the man who served as governor of Colorado at the start of World War II, had been largely forgotten for decades. But thanks to an effort by the Asian Pacific Bar Association (APABA) and a biography by journalist Adam Schrager, Carr's making a comeback in Colorado, and his legacy is finally getting its due, with a fine biography, a stretch of Highway 285 named in his honor, and now, a memorial to Carr's legacy at Kenosha Pass.
On December 12, representatives of Denver's Japanese American community, APABA, and CDOT assembled at a scenic overlook just a few hundred feet west of the Kenosha Pass summit on Highway 285 to dedicate the memorial. (Here's a nice report from the Canyon Courier about the dedication.)
It's a massive stone tribute engraved with a message that explains the significance of Ralph Carr to Colorado.
A rising star in the Republican Party during the 1930s, Carr was mentioned as a future presidential candidate when he famously became the only Western governor in the months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor to oppose first the harassment, and then the internment of Japanese Americans.
Yesterday it was 82 degrees, close to a record high, in Denver. It was as if summer had arrived in one day, with students sunning themselves at the University of Colorado, and people everywhere doing what Coloradans do during the summer: biking, walking, throwing Frisbees.
Yesterday is like a dream. You wouldn't know it happened. Today it snowed, and tonight the lows will drop to 20. Here are some photos of the return of winter.