Memories of Imprisonment: A presentation by former prisoner Sam Mihara

When Sam Mihara was 9 years old, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States
entered World War II. Shortly after, Sam and his family were forced from their San
Francisco home by armed military guards and sent to the Heart Mountain prison camp in
Wyoming. They would live crowded into a single 20 x 20 square foot room for the next 3
years. Today, at 90-years-young, Sam is the only camp survivor who tours nationally and
internationally speaking about this dark time in our history. Over 90,000 people have
heard Sam’s story detailing the difficulties he, his family and other Japanese Americans
faced before, during and after the imprisonment.

The program opens with photographs from renowned photographer Dorothea Lange and the Mihara family
collection that vividly highlight the hate Sam’s family and other Japanese Americans experienced just before
and after the December 7, 1941, attack. Sam 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 imsy 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.
The program closes by addressing the question: “What were the lessons learned through this experience and
can mass imprisonment happen again in the U.S.?”

Cody Calendar advertisers make this calendar possible.