But 60 years after the closing of the Topaz Camp, where about 8,000 Japanese-Americans, were forced to relocate, there is new hope that the area will be preserved and remembered for its controversial role during the war.
The U.S. House on Wednesday passed legislation that would grant $38 million to help restore and recognize the 10 Japanese internment camps, many of which have fallen into disrepair since they were abandoned. The Senate is expected to pass the bill early next year.
And in a second round of good news for those trying to preserve the site, the Virginia-based Conservation Fund said Wednesday that it is moving forward in buying 92 acres of the former site to donate to the Topaz Museum Board. When the sale closes in a few weeks, the board will be within 26 acres of owning the entire 640-acre site.
The place isn't much to look at now. The one-time wooden barracks have been converted into sheds or garages in nearby Delta. Modern homes have been built on the spot where those of Japanese ancestry were detained not for their actions, but because of their race.
The 8,000 residents of Topaz were plucked from their homes, their businesses, their lives and relocated to the remote part of Utah, where they lived in 20-foot-by-20-foot apartments with thin walls and army cots. Those with larger families, with six or more members, received four extra feet of apartment space.
Federal money will go a long way to preserving the shameful chapter of history that is minimized or ignored in some textbooks, say those who have been raising money from private donors to keep the land intact.
"We went through a lot and if people remember, maybe it won't happen again," says Grace Oshta, an 80-year-old Salt Lake City resident who was forced from her home in San Francisco at age 17 to live in Topaz for three years. "It was unnecessary."
A group of former internees and nearby Delta residents that has campaigned 15 years to raise funds cheered Wednesday's vote in the House.
Dan Sakura called it "a major accomplishment and step forward" in keeping alive a vital part of U.S. history.
"There need to be monuments to those people who survived the camps," said Jane Beckwith, a Delta High School journalism teacher and president of the Topaz Museum Board. "They were wronged; We just don't want to forget that.''
Beckwith and others have already restored one of the barracks from the site and placed it in Delta for visitors to see.
Plans include building a staffed interpretive center in Delta for people to be able to hear the story of Topaz and to place some type of markers on the site to give a sense of what the camp once looked like.
Most of Utah's federal delegation is co-sponsoring the legislation.
Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said Wednesday that he was "proud" of the work by the museum board and those who pushed for the money. "The testimonies we have heard throughout this process and during debate today on the House floor have been truly moving," Cannon said.
