UNMG event 11/19/15 on history of NM & WY Japanese Internment

KGLP Station Manager Rachel Kaub speaks with Curtis Hayes of Western New Mexico University in Gallup, NM, about a presentation planned for November 19, 2015:

UNM-Gallup and Western New Mexico University are hosting a presentation by three Japanese-Americans who were held in relocation camps during World War II. The event will be held in the Calvin Hall Auditorium on the UNM-Gallup campus on Thursday, November, 19 at 6:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

The three presenters all experienced War Location Authority  “family” camps as children: Sam Mihara in Heart Mountain, Wyoming; Herb Tsuchiya and Nikki Nojima Louis in Minidoka, Idaho. Nikki Nojima Louis’ father was held in camps in Santa Fe and Lordsburg.  Mihara will present his acclaimed video on the Heart Mountain camp and the effects of that experience on his life and family. Victor Yamada, whose mother came to America as a “picture bride,” will discuss the New Mexico Japanese American Citizen League’s collaboration with the National Park Services program entitled “Confinement in the Land of Enchantment.”

A diary written in Japanese by Lordsburg prisoners has been donated by Mihara, and translated into English for this project. New Mexico audiences will be the first to hear entries from the diary that tell the story of life in the Lordsburg prison camp. A panel discussion and Q&A follow the presentation.

During World War II, the United States government removed 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from their homes and held them in prison camps in remote parts of the western U.S. and Arkansas. Entire families, including women, children and the elderly--two-thirds of them American citizens--were forcibly moved to 10 so-called “Relocation Centers“ hastily constructed by the War Relocation Authority in undeveloped and desolate areas of the U.S.

Three such camps were located in New Mexico: Santa Fe, Fort Stanton, and Lordsburg.

For more information you may visit the website, http://sammihara.com/

This program is sponsored by the New Mexico Japanese American Citizens League and funded by the New Mexico Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.