Heart Mountain Convening: A Recap

Aura Sunada Newlin, Heart Mountain's Executive Director, showcases the traveling trunk they have created for educators.

At the beginning of April, the Friends of Minidoka and Minidoka National Historic Site team spent four days in Cody, Wyoming, at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center with Japanese American confinement site organizations (Amache, Ft. Missoula, Heart Mountain, Minidoka, and Topaz), to learn, connect, share ideas, and build the foundation for nationwide teacher workshops and public events that will be rolling out over the next 3 years.

The goal of these teacher workshops is to equip 7th - 12th grade educators with content, themes, and resources so they can teach about the lessons and legacy of the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. In addition to the workshops, the group will also host public events for the surrounding communities.

The first teacher workshop and public event will be held at the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. During World War II, the Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) used Fort Missoula as an “Alien Detention Center.” Between 1941 and 1944,  Fort Missoula held 1,000 Issei men as well as German resident aliens and Japanese Latin and South Americans. Learn more about the history of Fort Missoula here.

Participants work on educational activites.

In the coming years, staff from Friends of Minidoka and Minidoka National Historic Site will help lead and organize teacher workshops in Idaho and across the country with the partners listed above.

The view of Heart Mountain from the Heart Mountain Visitor Center

Support for this program comes from the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, federal funding from the National Park Service’s Norm Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education program, and matching funds from partner organizations.