Former Heart Mountain detainee to speak at Hot Springs County Museum

What if your family was living a busy and involved life, as respected members of the community, businessmen, civic leaders, homeowners, children active in schools.

Then suddenly, overnight, everything is turned upside down. You are given a few days to pack what can be carried in a suitcase, rounded up by military guards, and removed from your home to a remote area where you must make a new life surrounded by barbed wire fences, guards in towers watching 24 hours a day.

It happened to nine-year-old Sam Mihara in 1942, then living in San Francisco. Mihara, who would go on to become a rocket scientist and a college lecturer, will present a program, “Memories of Heart Mountain,” Tuesday, Sept. 22, at Hot Springs County Museum, Thermopolis, at 6 p.m.

Today, Mihara is a member of the board of directors, Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, and is one of the last survivors who speaks out about Heart Mountain internment camp and its long-term effects upon Japanese-Americans and American society.

Mihara will also speak to Hot Springs County School District #1 students earlier in the day. The Thermopolis events are sponsored by Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation, with a grant from the Wyoming Humanities Council.

Mihara shows rare footage and photographs of the roundup and transport to the camps, as well as life in the camps. He also offers up observations on how societies can become victims of their own paranoia.

After war was declared with Japan, everyone of Japanese descent living on the West Coast was removed to internment camps, whether they were U.S. citizens or immigrants. The U.S. government feared the presence of spies and terrorism attacks. Ten internment camps were set up across the country. More than 10,000 were relocated to Heart Mountain camp in a remote area of northwest Wyoming.

Sam Mihara and his family would remain there until 1945, living in a one-room apartment in tarpaper barracks with shared laundry and toilet facilities.

The story of their lives at Heart Mountain has relevance today as issues of immigration and detainment are at the center of presidential political debates.

He also discusses how a Wyoming friendship began when Boy Scouts from Cody and from Heart Mountain met in the 1940s, and how that friendship became instrumental 40 years later in changing laws that recognized the injustice done to Japanese citizens.

Hot Springs County Library will display photos from Mihara’s collection, along with newly acquired books for all ages on the Heart Mountain experience.

More detailed information and photos of Heart Mountain internment camp are on Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation website, http://www.hsglf.org.