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Japanese-American Internee Talks About Camp In Wyoming

Jordan Giese

The University of Wyoming hosted an event Thursday with Sam Mihara, who was one of the nearly fourteen thousand Japanese-American internees at Heart Mountain Relocation Center during the Second World War. Mihara spent three years in the camp in-between Cody and Powell after being forcefully relocated from San Francisco in 1942. 

Mihara recalled the Wyoming winters as being particularly tough.

“We never knew it got so cold, and with the wind blowing, that was a terrible surprise and the first winter we didn't have the right clothing” says Mihara. “Later on we learned and bought the right clothing from catalogs, but that was miserable.”

Mihara would eventually lose his grandfather to cancer in the camps, become temporarily paralyzed and saw his father go blind from glaucoma due to lack of treatment.

Heart Mountain Relocation Center was technically the third largest town in Wyoming during its operation.

Jordan Giese is a political science major currently working on his bachelor's degree. He has lived in Wyoming all his life but has a focus on both local issues and international stories. He moved to Laramie just last year rediscovering Wyoming and all it has to offer in landspaces, opportunities and people. He has listened to WPR for years and is thrilled to contribute to an important state service and NPR.
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