KOKORO KARA from our heart SUMMER AUTUMN 2019 H E A RT • M OUNTA IN • W YOMING • F OUNDATION HEART MOUNTAIN WYOMING FOUNDATION Board of Directors Shirley Ann Higuchi, Chair Douglas W. Nelson, Vice-Chair Claudia Wade, Treasurer Aura Newlin, Secretary Kris M. Horiuchi R. Dana Ono Takashi Hoshizaki Eric Sandeen Julia Ishiyama Peter K. Simpson Darrell Kunitomi Marc Sugiyama Sam Mihara Prentiss Uchida Allyson Nakamoto Shigeru Yabu Lia Nitake Kathleen Saito Yuille LaDonna Zall Honorary Advisors Norman Y. Mineta Alan K. Simpson Former U.S. Secretary of U.S. Senator (ret.) Commerce and Transportation Advisory Council Nancy Araki Ben Murphy William I. Higuchi James Murphy Jon Hoshizaki Naomi Oshita Alan Kumamoto Bacon Sakatani Amy Mass Carolyn Takeshita Jim McElwain Raymond Uno Jeanette Misaka Barbara Uriu Cover image: Heart Mtn. Wyo. 1945 by Jishiro Miyauchi HMWF 2002.021.002 1 Wilson Kate Photo by KOKORO KARA TABLE OF CONTENTS Volume 8, Issue 3 Editor/Designer: Kate Wilson Board Chair’s Column ........................................................................3 Have an idea for an article? Executive Director’s Column ..............................................................5 Would you like to be a contributing writer? We’re interested! Write to Kate Wilson CURRENT EVENTS: with your story ideas—these could include a profile of a former incarceree, a specific Welcome to New Board Member: Julia Ishiyama ..............................5 aspect of the Japanese American experience before/during/after the war, or an act Heart Mountain Institute Corner .......................................................6 of kindness from a non-incarceree, just to name a few. In Memoriam ......................................................................................7 [email protected] Return to Foretop’s Father .................................................................9 Change of address? Contact Danielle Constein to update your Autumn Events at the Japanese Embassy ........................................ 11 contact information and for questions regarding membership & donations. [email protected] FEATURES: 307-754-8000, ext. 102 2019 Pilgrimage ................................................................................ 12 Songs on the Wind Special Exhibit .................................................. 17 Heart Mountain Interpretive Center The Military Police Company: Token Security .................................23 Staff Under an Autumn Moon: Julie Abo Executive Assistant to the Chair A Glimpse into the World of Heart Mountain Haiku ..................29 Marla Barngrover The Appointed Staff: Guest Services Caucasian Workers at Heart Mountain—Part I ............................34 Anna Clifton Dusted Off: Highlights from the Collection ..................................... 41 Guest Services Danielle Constein Operations Manager Ray Locker Editorial Consultant Sharyl McDowell Guest Services Jill Ross Bookkeeper Page 12 Dakota Russell Executive Director Kate Wilson Communications & Design Consultant Page 41 Page 17 2 The Blue Ocean Strategy: Our Journey Beyond Heart Mountain* Chair Shirley Ann Higuchi othing is an overnight sensation. Success comes and our local Wyoming Nafter years of preparation, hard work and focus. community. We can’t Nowhere is that truer than at the Heart Mountain take our Nisei members Wyoming Foundation. Our July Pilgrimage was our for granted, as many of eighth and our most successful. Some of our old them are now in their friends, such as Tom Brokaw and Lance Ito, gave eighties and nineties. inspiring speeches about our shared experience and We must treasure each the value of Heart Mountain. In his remarks, Brokaw day we spend with said all presidential candidates should visit Heart them and gain as much Mountain. Shinsuke Sugiyama, Japan’s ambassador knowledge as we can to the United States and a first time attendee to the from their experiences Brian Smyer Photo by Pilgrimage, said that all Japanese need to know what now. They are our last happened to their kinsmen during World War II. We living link to the incarceration and everything that are reaching new audiences and making has happened since. new friends. We have a responsibility to honor It didn’t happen overnight. Our board the legacy of the Nisei. We can do and staff have traveled around the country that, in part, by ensuring the future to meet with other confinement site sustainability of our Foundation, groups, members of Congress, potential expanding and improving our donors, and members of the Japanese interpretive center and historic site, and government, raising the Foundation’s spreading the lessons about the Japanese profile. We’ve helped other organizations American incarceration to audiences develop their own programs and led the around the world. The outreach we’ve way to unify the Japanese American Ambassador Shinsuke Sugiyama begun has brought new supporters to community. We’ve seen the results of Heart Mountain. That success begets more that work during the last Pilgrimage, at the national success. Already, other potential donors are pledging Japanese American Citizens League convention the their support. following week in Salt Lake City, and in We recently received a $424,000 our planning meetings since then. We are National Park Service grant to continue attracting new support and expanding our restoration of the original Heart our center because of that hard work. Mountain root cellar. We are also At both our Pilgrimage and the JACL working with the Bureau of Reclamation convention, I was struck by the continued to secure the hospital buildings and involvement of our Nisei. More than fifty memorial property, which will enable us Nisei participated in our Pilgrimage, to develop that area. Both features will including many new faces. A friend noted help us attract new visitors. to me that one of the great successes of The National Endowment for the Heart Mountain is the work of the Nisei Humanities (NEH) has awarded us a Tom Brokaw 3 $170,000 grant to conduct two week- occupying the center’s theater. It is a long workshops for teachers about the key element of our long-term strategy incarceration, so they can take their to make our foundation an essential knowledge back to their classrooms and part of educating the public about the raise awareness of this history and the incarceration and social justice issues. lessons that we can learn from it. The Deni Mineta and Ann Simpson, workshops will take place between July Norm and Al’s beloved partners, have 19 and 31, 2020. NEH officials told us that agreed to be the honorary co-chairs of it was extremely rare for a group to win the Mineta-Simpson Center project, and a grant on its first try, and the program will be spearheading our fundraising only accepts 30% of its applicants. The good Judge Lance Ito efforts and guiding development of the news is that Wyoming is an under-served area for the center and its programming. They will be joined NEH. Again, we are entering another ‘blue ocean” of by two members of the Heart Mountain Wyoming future possibilities. Foundation board, Kathleen Saito Yuille and Claudia Additionally, we are republishing three books that Wade, who will serve as the project’s co-chairs. Kathy, will expand Heart Mountain’s outward reach. They who was born at Heart Mountain, lives in Milwaukee are Lone Heart Mountain by Estelle Ishigo, Light One and is a trustee of the Milwaukee Art Museum. Claudia Candle by Solly Ganor, and Heart Mountain: The is a Wyoming native and the executive director of the History of an American Concentration Camp by Doug Park County Travel Council in northwest Wyoming. Nelson. Lone Heart Mountain deals with issues, such Our dreams are big. Our mission is just. as interracial marriage, that are increasingly relevant Our team is strong, and I believe there is nothing we today. Ganor’s book creates connections to the Jewish can’t do. community, which shares many of our interests in Stay Inspired, social justice and the treatment of minorities. In late August, my daughter Adele Collier and her boyfriend Derek Dodd traveled to Israel with a scroll It’s too late to start digging a well thanking Solly for signing over the rights to his book. Our entire board had signed the scroll during the July when you feel thirsty. Pilgrimage, and Adele and Derek returned with the signed agreement turning over the copyright of Light *To learn more about the Blue Ocean Strategy, visit One Candle to Heart Mountain (more on page 6). www.blueoceanstrategy.com Next year, I plan to announce the formal effort to expand the interpretive center to create the Mineta- Simpson Center, a meeting and retreat space which will honor the work done by Norman Mineta and Alan Simpson to help our Foundation. This center will enable us to host larger events and workshops without 4 How to Make Friends & Introduce a Newsletter Executive Director Dakota Russell hey say that, after a certain age, it gets harder to This issue also contains Tmake new friends. Obviously, they have never a history of the military HMWF been to a Heart Mountain Pilgrimage. Each year, I police companies that come away from Pilgrimage weekend feeling like I’ve served as the camp’s made hundreds of new friends. It’s exciting to know guards, on page 23. that our message is reaching more and more people Speaking of new through this annual event. friends, I feel fortunate Among those new friends this year was a each summer to be delegation from the Embassy of Japan in the United able to work alongside States, including Ambassador Shinsuke Sugiyama. our interns, the next Ambassador Sugiyama and I talked about the generation of museum Foundation’s work, and how we might serve as professionals. These passionate young people work a model for Japan as it starts reconciling its own both in public roles and behind the scenes. Over the painful World War II history. On page 11, you can next few issues, you’ll be seeing articles from each read about how our friendship with the Japanese of our 2019 interns, detailing the specific corner of Embassy has blossomed since the Pilgrimage. Heart Mountain history they have been working At this year’s event, we also welcomed several with.