A Letter from former U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson about the HMWF Interpretive Learning Center

Dear visitor to the HMWF website,

    The two of us have been friends now for almost sixty-five years – our entire lives in politics, and then some.  But we think the most special thing about our friendship is the unlikely place it began, behind the barbed-wire fence of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Park County, Wyoming.

 

    Heart Mountain was one of the ten so-called “Relocation Centers” that the government set up during World War II to detain all of the people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast after forcing them from their homes.  It was a harsh place, where hundreds of families like the Mineta family struggled to get by, charged with no crime yet interned on baseless suspicions of disloyalty.  And it was a place that families like the Simpson family of Cody, Wyoming, knew little about, even though it was quite nearby.

    But each of the places – the town of Cody and the Heart Mountain camp – had a Boy Scout troop, and the two of us were both scouts.  That’s how we met – as twelve-year-olds at a Jamboree beneath the guard towers at Heart Mountain.  We knew even then that we had a lot more in common than our government seemed to think possible.  And though we were a lot more interested in tying knots and playing pranks back then than we were in the Constitution and civil rights, we now understand how important Heart Mountain was in forming our shared conviction that an injustice like the Japanese American internment should never again happen in the United States of America. 

    That’s why we’re both so pleased that an outstanding organization, the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, is hard at work planning a state-of-the-art Interpretive Learning Center at the site of the camp.  The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation shares our commitment to remembering the story of Heart Mountain and sharing its important lessons with a broad national and international audience. 

    In fact, the two of us have joined the Foundation’s Fundraising Committee so that we could lend a hand in the Foundation’s important efforts to raise the money it will need to make the Interpretive Learning Center a reality.

    We believe in the Foundation and its efforts, and especially in the three-person leadership team that is captaining the fundraising campaign.  Doug Nelson, the President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, offers tremendous expertise on the world of philanthropy and unparalleled experience in managing charitable funds and projects.  The Honorable Raymond Uno, a retired judge of the Third District Judicial Court of the State of Utah, is both a former Heart Mountain internee and one of the nation’s most recognized and inspirational Community Organization figures for over 50 years, especially in the area of civil rights.  And Shirley Ann Higuchi, Assistant Executive Director for Legal and Regulatory Affairs at the American Psychological Association and Past President of the District of Columbia Bar, brings more than twenty years experience and leadership as an attorney.

    We are confident in the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation as a steward both of the funds it raises and of the Interpretive Learning Center it will create.  Dave Reetz, President of Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation for 10 years is a Vice President and member of the Board of Directors of the First National Bank of Powell and a widely known figure, both in Wyoming and nationally, in the area of Economic Development.  The Foundation has already proven itself by securing and managing a half-million-dollar grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development as well as significant private donations from individual and corporate donors.  The Foundation has also already taken enormous strides toward preserving and interpreting the site of the camp.  In the space of just 10 years, it has acquired and managed significant lands at the site of the camp, restored and dedicated the camp’s Honor Roll of World War II veterans, and planned and installed a multi-station Walking Tour of the camp site.  The Interpretive Learning Center is the capstone of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation’s efforts, and we have every reason to believe that the Foundation will succeed in this project, as it has in all others.

 

    Our friendship, begun as Boy Scouts at Heart Mountain, has lasted for decades.  We want to make sure that future generations of Boy and Girl Scouts – and all who prize human dignity and freedom – will have the opportunity to learn the lessons of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center through a visit to the Interpretive Learning Center.  We hope you’ll consider joining the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation in this important effort.

 

     Respectfully and Sincerely,

 

                                        

 

              Norman Y. Mineta            Alan K. Simpson