Program Description
Event Details
Campbell County Public Library, in partnership with The Library Foundation, Campbell County Historical Society, and Wyoming Humanities, is pleased to welcome Sam Mihara to speak at Campbell County Public Library on Wednesday, September 13 at 6pm.
Sam Mihara, at 90-years-young, is a survivor of the Heart Mountain, Wyoming prison camp. Mihara tours nationally and internationally, speaking about this dark time in our United States history when over 120,000 West Coast residents of Japanese ancestry, most of them U.S.-born American citizens, were sent to 10 camps across the country.
Mihara is a second-generation Japanese American (Nisei) born and raised in San Francisco. When World War II broke out, the United States government, using armed military guards, forced Sam, age 9, and his family to move to the Heart Mountain, Wyoming prison camp. Sam and his family lived in a barrack for three years -- one 20' x 20' room with no utilities, poor food at the start, embarrassing toilets, severe medical problems, and cold Wyoming winters.
After the war ended, the family returned home to San Francisco. Sam attended Lick Wilmerding High School, U.C. Berkeley undergraduate and UCLA graduate schools, where he earned engineering degrees. He became a rocket scientist and joined the Boeing Company where he became an executive on space programs.
Following retirement, Sam changed careers – he became a national speaker on the topic of mass injustice in the U.S. He has visited many federal prisons including today’s detention facilities for undocumented immigrants. Sam helped in the education and preservation of the Heart Mountain historic prison site in Northwest Wyoming. Since 2014, he is a board member of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, the non-profit organization that oversees the National Historic Landmark site. And Sam is a member of the Japanese American Citizens League, SELANOCO Chapter.
Sam speaks to educators, schools, libraries, government attorneys, law schools, law firms and other interested organizations about his wartime experience and today’s prisons. Sam is a frequent guest lecturer at national history conferences, U.C. Berkeley, UCLA, Harvard and Columbia Law Schools, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Congress. In April of 2018, Sam was selected as keynote speaker for the National Council for History Education (NCHE) Conference which was held in San Antonio, Texas. During the conference, Sam was awarded the prestigious Paul Gagnon Prize as the history educator of the year – the first time to a Japanese American and the first west of the Mississippi. With approximately 100,000 history teachers in the U.S., this top award is a special honor. In August, 2022, Sam was awarded the Japanese American Citizens League’s prestigious honor, The Biennium Award for Education.
Over 90,000 people of all ages in the U.S. , Asia, and Europe have heard Sam’s story detailing the difficulties he, his family and other Japanese Americans faced before, during and after the imprisonment.
This event has been made possible through the support of Wyoming Humanities. Mr. Mihara will be touring the state and sharing "Personal Stories of Imprisonment" at other venues thanks to Wyoming Humanities.