Kristen Cheser – Staff Writer
Hate, mass hysteria and bad leadership lead nearly 120,000 Americans to be imprisoned because of their ancestry. Sam Mihara, a former rocket scientist, now travels to give presentations on his experience of being imprisoned in the Heart Mountain internment camp.
Mihara spent three years of his childhood imprisoned in Heart Mountain, located between Powell and Cody, Wyoming. Heart Mountain was one of the 10 internment camps throughout America where Japanese Americans were kept prisoners after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
“The constitution is supposed to protect us American citizens and the Supreme Court failed us,” Mihara said, “and it can happen again.”
Mihara said the racial prejudice was prominent as early as the 1800s when Japanese people had immigrated to America to work on the railroad tracks. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, prejudice rose to the degree where stores discriminated Japanese Americans and media portrayed Japan and its people as a national security threat. One poster portrayed a Japanese officer with Adolf Hitler and the caption, “Our homes are in danger now!” The hysteria of Japanese spies in America increased until President Franklin Roosevelt issued executive order 9066 requiring Japanese Americans to register and then be located to an internment camp as a security measure. Mihara and his family, escorted by armed guards, left their home in California and were relocated at Heart Mountain.
He described how the conditions were cramped, how they were not prepared for winter as they had no idea they would have been in temperamental Wyoming, and how the medical care greatly harmed his family. The camp was mainly run by the Japanese Americans themselves. Few positions had outside hires. Their hospital consisted of one outside doctor and the rest of the physicians were Japanese Americans with no specialty medical experience. Mihara’s father suffered from glaucoma and had requested to see his former doctor in California where his request was denied by the government. Because of this, Mihara’s father went blind and was unable to work. Mihara’s grandfather developed colon cancer, but with the poor staff provided to the hospital, his grandfather died at Heart Mountain within two months of being diagnosed.
After Mihara and his family were released from Heart Mountain, they returned home to discover ongoing prejudice. Their home had been looted and vandalized, and posters hung in his neighborhood with derogatory slang. Mihara said it was hard on his family to come back home and face more prejudice.
Another aspect Mihara discussed in his presentation was how the situation of internment camps relate to modern day issues. Mihara had visited immigrant camps and showed photos of people cramped in cages while they waited for relocation, and children who were escorted by armed guards just as he was when being relocated to Heart Mountain. He showed a picture from the camp in Dilly, Texas that showed detained mothers and their children. Then, he showed a picture of a small room with three bunkbeds. “For six people this is fine,” he said and then mentioned 18 people are fit into a single room. “Children have to sleep on the floor. It is unacceptable.” In all children immigration camps located in Florida, he said there were 1,800 cases where children reported being assaulted inside the camp.
