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Sam Mihara to present Memories of Imprisonment, a story of injustice Sept. 12
Published
10 months agoon
The Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum in Buffalo, will present a story of injustice when Sam Mirhara, a 90-year-old second-generation Japanese American, born and raised in San Francisco shares his presentation Memories of Imprisonment on Sept. 12.
When World War II broke out, Mihara was only 9 years old. He and his family were relocated to the Heart Mountain prison camp located in northern Wyoming.
Executive Director of the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum, Sylvia Bruner, told listeners of Sheridan Media’s Public Pulse about the location, now a National Historic Site.
According to materials sent by Bruner, the program opens with photographs from renowned photographer Dorothea Lange and the Mihara family collection that vividly highlight the hate Mihara’s family and other Japanese Americans experienced just before and after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack. Mihara explains how the decision was made to remove and imprison only Japanese people from the West Coast, and not Germans or Italians. He describes in detail the conditions in the prison camp—from the flimsy barracks where prisoners lived to the security system designed to assure no prisoners escaped. He goes on to talk about how the prisoners were released just before the end of the war.
Mihara will present his story beginning at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 12, at the Buffalo High School Auditorium. According to Bruner, thanks in large part to the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum, the Buffalo High School and a grant from Wyoming Humanities, the program is free and open to the public.
Learn more about Sam Mihara by clicking here. Learn more about the Heart Mountain WWII Japanese American Confinement Site, by clicking here.
Gary Bishop
August 30, 2023 at 6:37 am
My great uncle Herman Schmidt was killed along with 429 shipmates aboard the USS Oklahoma in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese bombed it. Probably sentiments were formed considering the devastating loss of life to our nation and uncertainty of enemy intentions so plans to protect our nation from similar cold blooded attacks were instituted. Remember the Japanese declared war on us. Herman can not express his opinion, he died in the hell of a ship hull at the hands of Japanese bombers.
Melinda Brennan
August 30, 2023 at 9:36 am
I took my aunt’s to the Heart Mountain camp. I regretted taking them there. They were both children when their uncle was killed by a suicide bomber; it made a lasting impact on the family. My great-grandmother had a nervous breakdown afterwards.
As a person further removed from that family incident, I found the Heart Mountain display very biased and not taking in the non Japanese people’s life at that time period. The exhibit spent a lot of time on the housing and bathroom facilities. They did not acknowledge that these were relatively wealthy
urban folks being literally sent to a rural area where most locals were barely scratching out a living. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the locals were living in a soddy.