Heart Mountain Interpretive Center

10/09/2026

No one works harder than Sam Mihara when it comes to sharing the history of the Japanese American incarceration. This weekend, he's in Homer, Alaska. Learn more here:

Sam Mihara was 9 when his family was sent to Heart Mountain in Wyoming. The retired rocket scientist is a keynote speaker at the Alaska Historical Society’s conference in Homer.

10/07/2026

Executive Director Aura Sunada Newlin spent the weekend at Pasadena's Huntington Library for Asian Exclusion and the Battle for Birthright Citizenship with Harvard's Erika Lee, right, and a host of other experts on birthright citizenship from around the country.

10/07/2026

We created a set of Japanese American incarceration flashcards to help educators in their classrooms and beyond, thanks to our grant from the Norman Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education program of the National Park Service. Coming soon to a classroom near you and our museum store.

10/05/2026

Heart Mountain board member Sam Mihara was incarcerated at Heart Mountain as a child and watched his father go blind and his grandfather die of mistreated cancer. After a successful career as a Boeing Co. rocket scientist, he spreads the history about the Japanese American incarceration to audiences around the county. On Oct. 2, he visited Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., where he met with Jill Stark, wife of longtime Claremont President Jack Stark, and Ken Walden, interim director of the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum at Claremont.

10/05/2026

Join us at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, October 8 for
Conversations on Democracy
Global Challenges in the Late 2020s:
Patterns, Problems, and Prospects. Speakers are Ambassador Tom Dougherty, Drs. Nevin Aiken and Jean Garrison of the University of Wyoming and Dr. Aura Sunada Newlin, executive director of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.

10/03/2026

Happy 101st birthday to Heart Mountain board member Takashi Hoshizaki. He's the surviving draft resister from Heart Mountain during the war. He will receive the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun later this month in Los Angeles.

10/02/2026

S. Neil Fujita was studying art in Los Angeles when he was forced into Heart Mountain. He was the first art director of the Heart Mountain Sentinel, served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and then then became a graphic artist responsible for some of the most iconic book covers, album covers and movie posters of the 50s, 60s and 70s. His work is now at the Barnes Museum in Philadelphia.

“Noguchi to Asawa: Designing Postwar America” traces the lives and works of six formerly interned artists whose works helped shape American culture.

09/28/2026

Our first traveling teacher workshop sponsored by a grant from the Norman Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education program of the National Park Service at the Historical Museum of Fort Missoula and The Maureen & Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana was a big success. The teachers were sharp and engaging, and our instructors were on point and interesting. At Fort Missoula, we saw their new barrack exhibit and the courtroom in which Japanese immigrants received their loyalty hearings. It was a great way to start the program that will travel to 13 states.

09/26/2026

What a great event Friday at the Mike and The Maureen & Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana. Paul Richter, author of The Distance Between Our Names, joined Matt Lautzenheiser, the executive director of The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, Susan H. Kamei, author of When Can We Go Back to America?, and Shirley Ann Higuchi, chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, for a discussion about Japanese immigration and the World War II incarceration. It was the first public event from our grant from the National Park Service's Norman Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education program.

09/23/2026

Dale Kunitomi was born behind the barbed wire at Heart Mountain, and he became one of our most active volunteers and frequent pilgrimage attendees. We'll miss him and our thoughts go out to the Kunitomi and Fujioka families, including his brother Darrell, one of our board members.

View Dale Sakaye KUNITOMI's obituary, send flowers and sign the guestbook.