At the Spanish carapace, steel cross
where Coronado forded the Arkansas in Kansas,
I find a box turtle, name him after the conquistador,
bring him further west and across the state line
to Camp Amache in Colorado.
Coronado is indifferent to the marker that reads,
“On this site the Amache Indians defeated
the Holly Wildcats 7-0, November 11, 1943,”
Amache an internment camp for Japanese
named after a Cheyenne woman.
I set Coronado on the parched ground.
He heads for the barbed wire. No place to be left
to fend against winds on a Dust Bowl boundary,
I sprint after him over foundations of a school
that created more controversy than the win—
the cost of $301,000 that could have bought
a Boeing B-17.
I knew Amache very well. My Dad worked for the WRA (War Relocation Authority) and we moved to Amache to keep our family together. It was an experience that had more influence on my life than almost any other. I was in the 6th grade. Our grade school was conducted in barracks. My brother was a freshman in High School and attended the controversial High School . I had a great teacher. All of my classmates were Japanese Americans. I was the only Caucasian in our room. My best friend was Sueko Sakogawa, whose large family had been interned , taken from their home in California. The experience made me so aware of the inhumanity of what was done to American citizens, just because their ancestors were Japanese and the hysteria of war took away their civil rights. I will never forget. I am a better person and care about our country and any thing that threatens people who might not be “WASP”s. My daughter and I drove to the site of Amache a few years ago and memories came flooding back. How the current administration of the US is treating refugees and asylum seekers is an abomination. Sorry, I do ramble. Thank you for the poem and reminding people that bad things can happen to good people if the wrong people gain power.