Japanese-Americans hope country doesn't forget

A Japanese-American internment camp in central Utah that confined some 8,000 people during World War II will join the ranks of some of the most historic sites in America.

The Interior Department announced Wednesday that the Topaz Camp, near Delta about 140 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, will be recognized as a National Historic Landmark, a designation granted to fewer than 2,500 U.S. locations.

The camp, now mostly a windswept field, was used during the war to confine Japanese-Americans and recent immigrants as racial fears increased; nine other camps also held those of Japanese descent during the war, and five of those have earned a similar historic designation.

To Grace Oshita, who was taken from her San Francisco home at 17 and spent three years at the rural Utah camp, the recognition as a national landmark is an important distinction she hopes will help future generations recall the infamous policy.

"A mistake like that if you know about it, it might not happen again," says Oshita, now 82 and living in Salt Lake City. "But so many don't know what we went through." [Link]