Heart Mountain Interpretive (Relocation) Center WY (#0570)

One of my objectives of the past decade has been to find and document the WWII Japanese Internment Camps around the country, thus a primary goal on this trip was to visit the Japanese Relocation (Internment) site in Heart Mountain,WY. Considering the mixed responses to that history found around the country, and considering that this was in the home state of Dick Cheney, I was expecting to spend only an hour or so at a fairly mediocre site -- but was completely wrong. The exhibit was exceptionally good at documenting the lives of Japanese Americans before the war, the hysteria that led to their internment, their lives in the camps, and life after the war. Most critically, the exhibit repeatedly reflected on the Patriot Act, current American sentiments, and whether we could again shift into such authoritarian racist hysteria. To document the visit, I've including photos of a number of the placards in subsequent pictures.

The placard shown in this picture is at the site of the camp and includes a description of the relocation process, a photo of the camp, and ends with a comment that the internment “..is of disturbing relevance today when groups of people continue to be singled out.”