Gila River Butte Japanese Internment Camp Near Casa Blanca, Arizona

Eric & I drove to

Casa Blanca &...

.... took a left past
Cotton Fields.

We left the pavement &

asked for directions to the

 Butte Camp Memorial.

Gila River Japanese Internment Center had two "Relocation Communities" - Butte Camp and the Canal Camp housed over 10,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II.

Eric & I follow a dirt road
looking for a bridge across
the nearby canal.

Herons are an unexpected

surprise on this offroad

trip.

Our GPS does not show
a road to Butte Camp.






Eric is using it to direct us in the direction of Butte Camp Monument.

We are the Blue Dot on

Eric's Google Satellite

app.

There are no road signs,
just like driving around
in Nicaragua.






Two months after Pearl Harbor was bombed (December 7, 1941), President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the rounding up and internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans living on the West Coast in areas deemed "sensitive in nature."  This was a response to fear of spying and espionage by this population.

A total of 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were forced from their homes, businesses and jobs.  They were sent to remote regions of the US and lived under guard until World War II ended.

A white structure sits on

an unmarked hilltop.

Eric stops the car so I can
take a picture of a building
foundation.

More concrete footings stretch

out into the desert.

Eric & I walk to the

monument.

A photo is etched into

the Butte Camp marker.

A brief description of the camp and map of the buildings is included.  Internees created the rules for their community; created a school; worked with a doctor and nurse to care for fellow internees; created ball fields for recreation, and 500 of them worked in local vegetable fields.

                                                                            This is a very remote section of Arizona.

Following World War II internees returned to homes that had been ransacked, looted, destroyed.  Businesses were also lost to neighbors and strangers.  Some sold their businesses way below market value because they didn't have time to negotiate fair prices for their property.

In 1948 President Harry Truman signed into law the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act to provide compensation for losses to internees.  Red tape and the inability to produce needed documents made the program unhelpful to those who lost property and years of their lives during the War.  

In 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act which apologized for interning Japanese and Japanese Americans.  The Act included $20,000.00 for each surviving internee.  

***Upate: San Diego issued an apology to Japanese Americans impacted by its support for a 1942 Resolution supporting the incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II.  The resolution was also rescinded.  Acknowledging the racist intent behind putting Japanese Americans in Concentration Camps is part of San Diego's efforts to address the City's history and formally atone for wrongdoing.